


Reversible

by Thorinsmut



Series: Junkers [4]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (I'm so sorry), Ableist Language, Age Difference, Anal Sex, Bad coping mechanisms, Biting, Body Worship, Complete, Crime, Cuddles, Cum Eating, Death Threats, Explosions, Gentle Sex, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, Kissing, M/M, Malnutrition, Medical Care, Mercy is a BAMF, Murder Thoughts, Needles, Nipple Play, Oral Sex, Protective Roadhog, Rough Sex, Self Harm, Size Difference, Threats of Violence, Vomiting, arts and crafts time with Junkrat, at gunpoint, bottom!roadhog, brief vore mention, feelings of unreality, gigantism, it was at the time of its writing though!, medical side effects, mentioned fat-phobia, near-suicidal recklessness, no longer canon compliant, overwhelming emotions, poorly negotiated kink, radiation poisoning, so much property damage, the junkers fail at civilized social skills, they fail hard, unbelievable sappiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-09-26 21:28:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9922844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thorinsmut/pseuds/Thorinsmut
Summary: Junkrat and Roadhog have joined up with Overwatch, and Mercy would like very much to get them some proper medical care. The difficult part is getting them to cooperate.But what are a pair of Junkers supposed to do with all that time, if given an unexpected new lease on life?





	1. setting the scene

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my latest fic! This was supposed to be a one-shot, but once I was writing Chapter 4 it became clear that it just... wasn't. So here. I will be updating with a new chapter every weekend.  
> Please enjoy!  
> -TS

Overwatch wasn't too bad. Not too terrible. There was food, but you could say the same of prison. Not actually all that different from prison, come to think of it, except they _wanted_ Junkrat to blow shit up and the prison didn't.

Like anyone could _stop_ Junkrat from blowing stuff up. Ha! Silly to think they could keep him and Roadhog as prisoners. The mass jailbreak had been great cover to get the fuck out of the country. But then Overwatch caught up with them and Overwatch was almost as illegal as Junkrat and Roadhog were, and Roadhog said they'd tried to help after the omnium blew (even if their interference was part of why the omnics tried to take the outback in the first place), so Junkrat decided to see what Overwatch was about from the inside. And if he didn't like it, he could blow them into orbit! Hahaha! Beautiful.

The hardest bit would be to make sure the blinky brit, Tracer, couldn't blip out of the blast radius, but Junkrat was sure he was up to the challenge. It was fun to think about as a... what did they call it? _Mental exercise_. That was the thing. Heh. Like a brain could grow muscles. Junkrat's brain was probably as strong as Roadghog's arms now, since he'd figured out how to take down Overwatch and every last person in it lots of different ways.

But Overwatch wasn't too bad, and Junkrat kind of liked trying to do some good in the world and he _really_ liked getting to blow people and places into tiny bits beside Roadhog, so he wasn't going to torch Overwatch. For now.

There were worse places than Overwatch to take shelter while Junkrat planned their next crime spree.

Hah. Junkrat enjoyed working with Overwatch, but he didn't exactly have time to waste here. Take a breather. Take a rest. Gather intel, and then they'd be off again! It wouldn't be easy to top the Crown Jewels heist, but Junkrat was absolutely going to try.

Junkrat and Roadhog came in on fire from taking down a small Talon installation (and an icecream truck that happened to cross their path on their way out. Tasty.) That creepy Athena program was driving the stealth transport. Junkrat ignored its warnings and cut the wires to open the cargo bay doors while they were still a few meters from landing back at base, and Roadhog drove the bike out at full speed, grabbing Junkrat on the way past. Junkrat climbed onto his back, and they came flying into the Overwatch courtyard.

Nobody but Roadhog could have made that landing, and Junkrat howled like a dingo and threw a couple little poppers in the air to celebrate as they took a victory lap. They made nice big bangs, but they were harmless. Mostly. Unless Junkrat retooled them, which generally took about three seconds hahaha!

"Take another lap!" Junkrat hollered, but Roadhog didn't listen and took them roaring down to the garage instead to park the bike beside the sidecar. They'd wanted to be more maneuverable than the sidecar would allow, for this mission. Nobody had messed with Junkrat's exploding locks on it while they were out, and Junkrat quickly locked the bike to it the same way so nobody but them could touch it. Safe as bombs could make it.

"Safe as bombs," Junkrat declared, grinning up at Roadhog. Roadhog snorted fondly and put his hand on Junkrat's head, extinguishing his hair. "What do you want to do now Roadie?" Junkrat asked. He was still jittery from the sugary ice cream and the high of a job gone well. "Want to go break the bed? Or smash some training bots? Or! Ahaha! We could roll some poppers down the hallways and see who has a heart attack!"

"Tired," Roadhog said. He had done a lot of running and fighting today. He was unstoppable, magnificent, but fighting and healing took a lot out of him.

Junkrat bounced up to wrap his arms around Roadhog's neck, giving the nose of his mask a smooch. "All right. Let's get you to bed, and I won't even blow anything up while you nap!"

They'd been given two separate rooms, but that had only lasted until Roadhog punched a big hole in the wall between them an hour later. The monkey chap, Winston, had told them to make do with what was available because renovations were not a high priority. He and that creepy Athena thing had not been happy with _how_ Junkrat and Roadhog had made do, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that Roadhog and Junkrat had a double-sized room and could push their beds together to make one huge bed, big enough for them both.

Of course that meant Junkrat had to be quiet when Roadhog was resting. Had to be good to his Roadhog. It wasn't easy. Maybe Junkrat would go take apart some of the training bots for parts while Roadhog rested. That could be fun. Could never have too many supplies, and there was a creaky joint on his metal elbow that might take some looking into. And his metal leg was always a piece of shit, maybe he could find something to repair it with.

Nothing would ever match the glory of the crown jewels leg, though, even if it hadn't been very durable.

Roadhog pushed his mask against Junkrat's neck, giving him little piggy kisses that made warm squiggly feelings go bouncing all through Junkrat's body. He laughed and squirmed, and Roadhog let him go to walk to their room.

They were broken off by Winston, though. Junkrat caught sight of him down a hall, and if Winston caught them he would want to debrief their mission. It would be all 'collateral damage' and 'destruction of Overwatch property' and 'health and safety' and 'we have discussed the discharge of explosives on the premises'.

Blah.

Blah.

_Blah._

Junkrat grabbed Roadhog's arm and dragged him the opposite direction. Only then they came across Mei, and she _hated_ them and Junkrat couldn't stand it when she made her scrap-heap bot blow cold at him (which was whenever he was within two meters of her) (he was going to get that bot one of these days. Blow it into smithereens and make Roadhog something pretty out of the pieces), so he went with it when Roadhog grabbed him and pulled him into a side room keep out of her way.

"Gentlemen. So kind of you to join me."

Shit.

It was the winged sheila, Mercy. She was smiling at them with all her teeth. They'd been dodging her from the moment they joined Overwatch. She always tried to catch them whenever she was in the base. Junkrat hadn't even known that she'd returned from... whatever war zone she'd been flapping around over, and now they were standing right in her clinic.

Suddenly the _timing_ of the mission he and Roadhog had been sent on was very suspicious. And the placement of Mei and Winston, herding them here. It was a setup. A trap.

That's it.

Time for Overwatch to burn. Again.


	2. the checkup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roadhog and Junkrat decide to cooperate with Mercy. Kind of.

Roadhog cottoned on to the ambush about three seconds before Junkrat did, when he glanced back and saw Mercy in the only escape route—setting out her medical equipment. In a split second, Roadhog decided to go with it. He dragged Junkrat into the room with her instead of blasting his way out of the building with Junkrat in tow.

He'd figured that someday he was going to have to put his gun to the back of a good doctor's head to get Junkrat help, and now one of the best doctors in the whole world was trying her hardest to help him voluntarily. Mercy had made no secret about her distaste for their inclusion in Overwatch and their working methods, but she either took her responsibility for their heath seriously or thought they'd be an interesting data point for her research. Junkrat and Roadhog were a necessary evil to Overwatch, terrorists who could be deployed when destruction was needed. They were in, for as long as Junkrat was still having fun.

They ought to get anything they could out of Overwatch while they were here.

Junkrat put the pieces together fast when he noticed Mercy and cackled, pulling out two detonators. They were too deep in the building to guarantee survival if he blew it, even Roadhog wasn't sure he could protect Junkrat from here. He put a hand on Junkrat's shoulder to get his attention, indicating his nearly empty bandoleer of hogdrogen canisters. They were low on supplies after a mission, lowering their chances of survival even further.

Maybe Overwatch had counted on that to make them more compliant.

"No need for anything dramatic," Mercy said, smiling slightly and completely unafraid. She had no idea what Junkrat was capable. None of them did. He wasn't just feral and bomb-happy, he was a survivor. Roadhog had mastered the apocalypse by being so ruthless no one would dream of crossing him. Junkrat had taken another path—being crazy enough nobody wanted to risk messing with him for fear of overwhelming retaliation. He was a powder keg with a lit fuse of wildly fluctuating length, never more than 1.5 seconds away from unleashing hell, and he didn't mind hurting himself as long as he hurt someone else more in the process. Overwatch would never have tried ambushing Junkrat for even the most benign of reasons if they had any idea how his brain worked. They didn't know he'd figured out the buildings weaknesses and rigged it to explode at his whim, and wouldn't hesitate to take it down at the slightest provocation.

They thought he'd turn into a team player if they were patient with him, not understanding that Junkrat spent his time figuring out exactly how to kill them all, just for fun. Even Roadhog wouldn't want to face off against Junkrat, which was why their partnership had lasted long enough for it to turn to true loyalty and friendship.

No one else in the world was vicious enough to keep up with Junkrat but Roadhog, and nobody was mad enough to keep up with Roadhog but Junkrat. They were a horrible pair, in the best of ways.

It was for that friendship, because Roadhog was tired and low on hogdrogen, that Junkrat's burning eyes softened and he put his detonators away. It had nothing to do with Mercy, who was continuing.

"I promise this will be an entirely painless checkup, and absolutely vital to your continued work for Overwatch," she said, smiling like she was trying to be friendly. "It's this, or no more missions, and I know you enjoy your missions."

"Let's go Roadie," Junkrat said, turning away. Roadhog didn't doubt he meant out of Overwatch entirely, choosing the third option Mercy hadn't mentioned. Roadhog would follow him anywhere in the world, and Junkrat had made some noises about hitting Russia next to see how many of the invading Omnics they could take out before the government noticed them. It would be fun, but Roadhog had already made his decision. He could remember Junkrat burning from the inside with radiation sickness. Dying. Roadhog had been so powerless to help him then, and only barely managed to pull him back from the brink.

He'd taken over the responsibility of remembering Junkrat's biotics pill every day, and there had been no serious relapses, but it was only a matter of time. Junkrat had been just a child when the omnium blew, and doomed from that moment onward, but maybe that didn't _have_ to be true. Maybe he could be healed.

Roadhog tightened his grip on Junkrat's shoulder, holding him in place. "Maybe..." he said. "She's the best doctor in the world."

Junkrat had gone on rants about not wanting his insides charted up and kept in a file so everyone in Overwatch could know when Jamison Fawkes was scheduled to bite the big one. Of course he didn't want his weaknesses known. He didn't want anyone else to know how close to dying he was, because his entire life he'd been fighting to survive. He didn't want anyone to think he was easy pickings.

He wasn't, though. He'd never be. Junkrat was the deadliest person Roadhog knew, other than himself. Overwatch had its share of mercenaries and soldiers, but none of them knew what it took to survive the apocalypse.

Junkrat looked up at Roadhog, confused and betrayed, but then trusting. Junkrat trusted Roadhog to steer him right. He didn't blow anything up, or push Roadhog away. That trust was a terrible thing. It meant Roadhog had to keep being worthy of it.

"That's kind of you to say, Mako." Mercy was setting out some tools on the counter. "If you would wait outside while I check Jamison over first?"

"No!" Junkrat shook his head hard. "I might let you look at me, but only if Roadhog's in the room. Otherwise we're hitting the road. And that's Junkrat and Roadhog to you, sheila."

"Yep," Roadhog agreed. No way was he leaving Junkrat to face this alone.

Mercy blinked at them, a line between her brows. "I cannot offer you privacy if..."

Roadhog chuckled, shaking his head, and Junkrat laughed with him.

"Roadie and I've been living out of each other's asscrack _way_ too long to care about privacy," Junkrat said. "Do us both together or we're walking."

"I suppose we can do it that way, if it makes you comfortable." Mercy granted. "Please, sit." The chairs were not _too_ small for Roadhog, just a little bit squishy. Between Reinhardt and Winston, Roadhog wasn't the only big person who used the base, even if he was the biggest. Junkrat sat in the one beside Roadhog, lean body tense and his eyes trained distrustfully on Mercy.

Roadhog put a protective arm around the back of Junkrat's chair.

This was going to be uncomfortable for both of them. Roadhog didn't want to be told what kind of shape his body was in either, but it would be worth it if Junkrat didn't have to have his life stolen by the radiation.

Mercy picked up a little medical scanner, punching a few buttons on it. "We'll start with a quick body scan, then I'll take a cheek swab and a few drops of blood, and we'll see where we go from there. All right?" She took a step toward Junkrat with the scanner. He tensed all over like he was preparing to make a break for the door.

"Me first." Roadhog said.

"Certainly," Mercy aimed toward Roadhog instead like that's what she'd been planning the entire time. "Hands at your sides and hold still, thank you." A wide beam of light projected from the scanner, and Roadhog quickly reached out to aim it _below_ his face instead of starting at the top of his head. Mercy's eyebrows rose, her jaw tensing. "The brain is a very complex and delicate organ, and I assure you anything my scanner discovers will be entirely confidential, seen by no one but me," she said. Roadhog shook his head, and she sighed and began to sweep the beam of light slowly down Roadhog's body. "This will give me a good general picture of your bones and organs," she said, probably for Junkrat's benefit. "Very strong bones, Mr. Rutilege. And the muscle tone one would expect from your active lifestyle. Very good."

"Nope," Junkrat leaned far away from it. "No, you're not scanning my tech." He hugged his arms together. "That's Fawkes' proprietary technology! You're not stealing it."

Mercy pressed her lips together, eyes rolling slightly. Underestimating Junkrat just because he built his prosthetics from scrap instead of designing them new. She had no idea how many utilities Junkrat had crammed into his arm. Fire was always at his fingertips, explosions always a whim away. He'd have been an inventor to rival Torbjorn, or a scientist to rival her, if Junkrat hadn't been forced to channel all his genius into survival.

"So take it off," Roadhog suggested. He figured it was all right to talk now, since the scan had moved further down from his chest. He kept very still otherwise, though, and Mercy didn't chide him for it.

Junkrat grumbled and began unhooking his arm. Mercy made a tiny uncomfortable face seeing the primitive nerve interface, but was tactful enough not to say anything about it. Junkrat rubbed his chaffed nub, then took off his much simpler leg too. And then his RIP-tire and grenade harness, so those wouldn't get scanned either. Junkrat touched the left side of his ribcage, where his heart monitor chips were embedded, but he'd gotten those specifically so they couldn't be taken out without killing him, and there wasn't much Mercy would be able to tell from scanning those alone.

He had nothing to worry about, unless he had more stuff embedded than Roadhog knew about, which was possible.

"Very good. Now Jamison?" Mercy pushed a few buttons and stepped over in front of Junkrat.

"Junk. Rat." Junkrat snapped, leaning out of the way of the scanner.

"'Junkrat' then. Please," Mercy reached out as thought she was going to hold him in place, but Junkrat straightened up and held himself as still as he was capable of being before her hand touched him. He was only trembling a little bit. "Thank you." Mercy started her scan of him.

"Just so you know. If you do anything fishy, it's all blowing," Junkrat warned.

Mercy smiled a tight smile, the side of her body closest to Junkrat's discarded equipment tensing slightly. She thought Junkrat just meant the explosives left in his equipment. Roadhog would bet good money he meant all of Overwatch.

Junkrat coughed when the beam of light from the scanner reached the spot on his ribcage where his chips were installed. He even managed to make it seem completely real and natural. Mercy's lips thinned with displeasure, but she didn't try to rescan.

Mercy paused her scan just below Junkrat's hips, brow furrowing as she brought it back up to his bellybutton to scan his groin a second time.

"See something you like?" Junkrat quipped, spreading his legs with a smirk to cover his discomfort.

"Hold still," Mercy warned. "I am simply having trouble locating both—"

"The second nut? Don't bother." Junkrat said. "I used it as croc bait _years_ ago, hahaha!" His eyes darted back and forth, figuring out what story to spin about it. "There was this huuuuuge three-headed croc. Massive bastard, a maneater, and fatter than old pigface over here. Well I was hungry, starvin', and I came across that croc layin in the mud and I knew if I could just get it to swallow a bomb I could eat for weeks! Only I didn't have any food for bait, on account of I was starving. And well, you know, I only had one arm and one leg but two balls is just unnecessary. One's easier to fit in your mouth anyway, right? Right? Ha! So I took my sharpest knife and I—"

Mercy's face was a picture of fascinated horror and disbelief. She was lucky Junkrat hadn't decided to go with the 'cooked it up as an appetizer for a cannibal king' story.

"It grew a lump," Roadhog interrupted. "When he was a teen. Surgeon took it out."

"Shut up ya drongo!" Junkrat whined. "I had her going. When did I even tell you that, anyway?"

"Boat from Hong Kong," Roadhog said. Junkrat had been bored out of his mind, and taken to telling real stories to keep himself from blowing a hole in the cargo ship they were stowed away in.

Junkrat laughed. "Oooh, yeah. That makes sense."

"Thank you for the truth," Mercy said. She had resumed her scan down Junkrat's legs and on toward his singular foot. "It is very important that I know your medical history so that I can provide you the best care. Was it a cancerous tumor, do you know?"

"Dunno," Junkrat said. "Anything with a lump's got to go, in the outback. Lucky I got to keep one nut, or I'd be singing _real_ high. Ha!" Junkrat laughed and smacked Roadhog's arm.

"Have you had any other lumps?" Mercy asked. She finally finished scanning Junkrat's impatiently jittering foot and stepped back to put a few notes into the scanner.

"Sure!" Junkrat said. He paused in putting his prosthetics back on and lifted up his short right arm, pointing to a pair of scars under his armpit. "When did I get these ones, Roadie?"

Roadhog shrugged. It was before his time, and the first he'd ever heard about them.

"A while back," Junkrat decided, which was about as clear as he ever got on time.

Mercy, sensibly, did not press for more than that. She set the scanner aside and went for a couple of sterile cotton swabs. She'd picked up that Junkrat wasn't going to consent to anything he hadn't watched Roadhog do first, and approached Roadhog with them. "If I could have access to your mouth, Mako?" she requested.

Junkrat cackled and elbowed Roadhog, who nudged him back as he lifted his mask enough to bring his mouth into view. It was as much as he allowed anyone to see in the dining hall, not a big deal. He opened when Mercy told him to, and she rubbed the swabs against the inside of his cheek and let him cover his face again.

Junkrat made faces and gagging noises when it was his turn, but he allowed it. He was cooperating with this much better than Roadhog had feared.

Mercy put the swabs into a machine to be evaluated, and turned back with a tiny mechanism attached to a vial. "Now just a couple drops of blood. If you would give me your hand?" Roadhog held his hand out, and Mercy turned it palm up. She tried to attach the mechanism to several of his fingertips, but it was far too small for any of them. "Well," she said. "It looks like I'll have to do this the old fashioned way. I _should_ have a lancet..."

Roadhog rolled his eyes and sighed. There was always something like this when he saw a doctor. A blood pressure cuff that wouldn't fit around his arm, or a scale that didn't go high enough. Mercy's high-tech approach had avoided most of it, but this was only to be expected.

"That's bullshit," Junkrat complained. "What good's a machine that won't work for everyone?"

"Anything designed for the average will obviously fail for some people," Mercy defended, pawing through a drawer. "I would not use it for a child, either. Here we are." She returned with a small plastic mechanism holding a spring-loaded needle. She wiped Roadhog's finger down with an alcohol wipe, then pricked his finger and took some blood in a vial, with Junkrat leaning in close to watch in fascination.

"Here!" Junkrat held his left hand out to Mercy with a big smile, blood already welling up from his fingertip.

"Ah!" Mercy startled. She spun away quickly with Roadhog's blood sample and swept back with new alcohol wipes and a fresh vial. She wiped away the blood Junkrat had already spilled, then squeezed his finger to take a few new drops from his clean skin. "While I appreciate the cooperation, the 'machine' would have worked perfectly well for you, and been much safer and less painful than whatever you pricked your finger with," she chided.

Junkrat laughed and popped his finger in his mouth as soon as she let it go.

Mercy cringed, opened her mouth, then closed it again and took his blood sample away to plug it into another machine along with Roadhog's. "Bandaids?" she offered, holding up a rainbow-pack of little bandages.

"Pink," Roadhog requested, and her eyebrows didn't even raise as she fished one out to give him. It was a pretty bright pink, and didn't nearly wrap around his finger. That was fine, it didn't have to last long.

"Explosion colored!" Junkrat chimed in, bouncing in place.

"...I have yellow?" Mercy tried, holding it out.

Junkrat grabbed it out of her hand and cackled as he wrapped it around his finger, then dug a stub of a pencil out of his pocket and began doodling his signature x-eye smiley face on it.

Mercy gave them both a very professional smile that didn't come anywhere near her eyes. "In a few minutes I will have a full workup of your physical states. Now, I would obviously prefer to ask this one on one, but if you are still refusing?" she waited for them both to nod. "Do either of you have any medical problems that have been bothering you? Anything you think I could help with?"

"Nope," Roadhog said. He felt the same as usual.

Junkrat scratched his nose, eyes rolling up as he thought. "Nah, she's all aces," he decided.

"Very well," Mercy said. "Please wait here. I'll be back in just a few minutes." She gave one last uncomfortable smile to them both, then fled to the back room to get away from them.

"Let's run," Junkrat stage-whispered, tugging on Roadhog's arm and grabbing his RIP-tire with his other hand.

"You want go now, and let Overwatch know more about us than we do?" Roadhog asked. It seemed like the most likely argument to hold water with Junkrat, and it did pause him.

"They won't know shit if we blow the building first," Junkrat tried.

Roadhog shook his head, he stroked his hand down Junkrat's head and shoulders. Junkrat, predictably, melted against it with a soft moan. "I want to know," Roadhog said.

Junkrat sighed heavily and settled back in his seat to wait.


	3. the diagnoses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Mercy figures out what is wrong with the Junkers

Junkrat didn't sit still, as they waited for Mercy to come back with their diagnoses. He twitched and fidgeted, growing more agitated beside Roadhog by the moment. He jumped to his feet the moment Mercy came back into the room. Her brows were furrowed as she looked at her tablet. Not a great sign.

"I'm fine!" Junkrat yelped. "Good for another couple years, right? Thanks doc, bye." He lunged for the door, but Roadhog grabbed him by the waist in time and pulled him back to sit in the seat. It was a testament to how close a partnership they'd built that Junkrat didn't try to kill him for it. He slumped down in his seat, arms crossed and pouting.

"No, you are not 'fine'. How are you _alive_?" Mercy demanded of him, losing her professional demeanor for a moment, and Roadhog's breath stopped in his lungs. He knew that Junkrat was irradiated and missing bits, but it was that bad?

"Well that's easy," Junkrat said, unfolding his arms to count on his metal fingers. "Devilish good looks and charm, massive fucking explosions, and Roadhog." He pondered a bit before laughing—one of his uncomfortable laughs that he used to fill silence he didn't like. "Not necessarily in that order."

"Anyone can see you are dangerously underweight, but these scans... the radiation poisoning alone..." Mercy trailed off, staring at him. "Not to mention the amount of _shrapnel_ you're carrying around. All the bones you have broken. The state of your spine. The amount of pain you must be in, on a daily basis, the mind can hardly comprehend. How you are functioning is beyond me."

Roadhog could hear his heartbeat pounding in his head, louder and louder the longer Mercy talked. Somewhere far away, his fingers were clenching down on the armrests so hard the metal began to crumple.

"Hurting's just how you know you're still alive," Junkrat said, folding his arms again mulishly. "I've got a few good years left. Could have told you that myself."

"No," Mercy said. She took a deep breath and sat herself against the counter, visibly settling herself. "It doesn't have to be that way, Jamison. A good deal of the damage can be repaired. I simply do not know how you lasted this long without proper care."

Roadhog breathed, relief flooding his body so his hands might be shaking if they weren't still holding onto the armrests. It could be fixed. Junkrat wasn't doomed. As for how Junkrat had survived so long, Roadhog knew that one. He reached into his pocket, fishing around until he came up with the little bottle of biotics pills. He tossed it over to Mercy.

Mercy caught it, looked at him in confusion, then down at the worn bottle. She inhaled sharply through her nose, an angry pink rising in her pale cheeks as she read its label. " _Verfickte Scheisse_!" she spat, and Junkrat perked up, always pleased at an opportunity to learn new swear words. With Mercy's tone, they couldn't be much else. "This is an affront to medical science!" she continued, her accent thickening and her eyes blazing. "My research should never have been used for this... this _adulturated snake oil_!"

"Yeah, well it's the best you could kill a man for back in Junkertown," Junkrat defended. "They've kept me going this long."

"No," Mercy said. "No, no, no." She turned and dropped the bottle down the garbage chute—right toward the incinerator, like it was disgusting and the very touch of it had sullied her hands.

Bad move. But then again, Overwatch clearly had no idea how Junkrat worked.

"That was _mine_ , stole it fair and square!" Junkrat shrieked, reaching for his frag launcher. "I'm gonna to shove a bomb so far up your—"

Roadhog grabbed him before he could finish the threat or follow through on it, pulling him into a bear hug to hold him still. He hated doing it, hated the times when he couldn't be Junkrat's backup and get pulled along in the wake of Junkrat's violence, but this was definitely one of those times. Junkrat flailed viciously, thwacking his metal elbow into the side of Roadhog head a couple times hard enough to make his eyes cross, and scraping his booted foot down Roadhog's shin hard enough to make it bleed. A regular man couldn't have held on to him, with the way his whole body bucked and squirmed. There wasn't much on Junkrat's frame, but what was there was pure muscle.

"Leggo of me you heifer," Junkrat screamed, frothing at the mouth. "I'm gonna kill her. I'm gonna kill 'em all!" Then he got his sharp rat teeth into the meat of Roadhog's thumb and just screamed. Junkrat's fury was hot and violent, but it didn't have lasting power. His style was immediate retaliation, rather than Roadhog's slow but inexorable revenge. Roadhog just had to hold Junkrat for about a full minute, until the mad fury that kept him alive so long subsided. Until Junkrat's body was just shaking, instead of fighting.

Junkrat spat out Roadhog's thumb. "It was _mine_ ," he said, and bit Roadhog again. Gently, this time, so it didn't break the skin.

"I know," Roadhog said. He couldn't blame Junkrat for his reaction. Watching something of his be destroyed when he'd whored himself and fought and killed to get his hands on it was extreme provocation.

Mercy was at the door of the room, as though she'd very sensibly decided to run for her life and then less sensibly changed her mind. The way she was holding her body, with her right hand hidden behind her thigh, could only mean she was holding a small weapon. Smart of her. Wouldn't have done her much good, but still good thinking.

Roadhog almost liked her for it.

"I'm very sorry, Jamison," Mercy said.

"Junkrat!" Junkrat snarled at her.

"Junkrat," Mercy corrected herself. "I should have asked permission. I am not taking anything away from you, merely replacing those watered down biotics with something more potent. If I may?" she stepped cautiously back into the room, her right hand slipping into her pocket. Still concealing her weapon. Neither of them stopped her. Junkrat turned his nose up at her and squirmed around to sit himself on what little of Roadhog's lap was free for sitting on, his mouth reddened with Roadhog's blood. Roadhog kept a hand on him, holding him comfortably close, and hooked his last hogdrogen canister to his mask for a quick puff—just enough to close the wounds Junkrat had given him. It was hardly worth it for such small injuries, but human bites got the worst infections if left untreated. The familiar sting of the hogdrogen prickled in Roadhog's lungs, with an energetic warmth flooding through his body following it.

Mercy swiped her thumb on the lock of a cabinet, and took out two bottles of about the same size as the one she'd incinerated. She tossed them to Junkrat, who caught them and peered curiously at their labels. Clearly Mercy did not want to be anywhere close to them. She'd picked that much up, at least.

"That's a general-purpose biotic, similar to what you were using before, but strong enough to do some real good." Mercy said.

Junkrat nodded, holding on to one bottle and shoving the other awkwardly into Roadhog's pocket.

"Take one pill every day, with food preferably," Mercy prescribed. "It should help, but in a case like yours I recommend a more rigorous course of treatment. As I said, a good deal of the damage could be repaired. My preference would be an intensive TBS treatment."

"In plain English," Roadhog requested.

"Ah, yes. Of course." Mercy said. "The TBS is a system of my own invention, the Total Biotics Submersion. Essentially Ja—Junkrat would be suspended, unconscious, in a tank of concentrated healing biotics while medbots perform minimally invasive surgeries to remove shrapnel and repair damaged bones and cartilage. In two weeks, you would emerge a new man!"

Junkrat laughed, harsh and unamused. "You're mad as a cut snake if you think _that's_ ever happening."

Mercy nodded. "I figured you would prefer something less invasive. Perhaps a weekly IV—just half an hour at a time—and then a series of small surgeries under local anesthesia to remove shrapnel and perhaps repair your hearing once you're in better condition?"

"No," Junkrat said, blunt refusal just for the sake of it.

"We'll talk about it," Roadhog corrected.

Mercy sighed, but she didn't push. She was still tense and wary and all the way across the room from them. She kept putting her hand in her pocket, checking on her weapon for comfort. "I will devise a course of treatment tailored to your needs, Junkrat, and get you a detailed writeup, so you can make an informed decision."

Junkrat plucked at a loose thread on his shorts and ignored her.

"In six months you could be out of pain; with radiation levels barely above average," Mercy said, to entice him. "Though, I must tell you honestly, the radiation you were already exposed to has left you sterile. There is almost no chance you could ever have children, with the minimally invasive approach." She said it consolingly, like it was the worst news she could possibly tell him and needed to soften it.

Junkrat snorted, still not looking at her. He'd pulled a long thread out of his shorts and was winding it around and around his flesh index finger to watch it turn purple. "Not like I'm trying to fill Roadie with piglets," he said.

Roadhog was glad his mask covered his face. Mercy wasn't as likely to notice his ears turning red as his face. There was no reason Mercy had to know anything about their sex life, but Junkrat's brain to mouth filter was not so much faulty as nearly nonexistent.

"Ah." Mercy blinked at them, but forged onward. "So your relationship _is_ of a sexual nature, as well."

"I already told the monkey chap," Junkrat said. "He said there was no fraternizing in the ranks, but I told him we'd been bumpin' uglies for ages before he recruited us, and we weren't stopping for him or anyone."

"Of course," Mercy said, forging onward like gay junkers was something she dealt with every day. "Let me set you up with some safer sex literature..."

"Ha!" Junkrat smacked Roadhog's belly, inviting him to join in his amusement. "Sheila, anything that can survive _this_ is welcome to hitch a ride." Junkrat gestured grandly to his stringy body.

Roadhog snorted his own amusement. Junkrat was all too frequently caught in the spray of blood when Roadhog got hit, and occasionally when Roadhog didn't do his job well or fast enough Junkrat bled on Roadhog. Junkrat was sitting right in front of her with Roadhog's blood in his teeth, and Mercy still thought they were worried about sex as a disease vector?

Mercy closed her eyes as though this pained her, but then opened them again—unwilling to be sightless in a room containing the two of them. She was learning. "Well," she said, and then paused, as though she hadn't thought of what to say afterward yet. "Well, I suppose one advantage of taking even very weak healing nanobiotics on a long-term basis is quick healing from infections. I did not catch anything concerning in the blood scan."

"So we're just fine. Like I said." Junkrat said. "Can we go now?"

"Yes you may go, Ja-Junkrat," Mercy said. "There's no need for you to be here for Mako's diagnosis." She sounded eager to be rid of him. Junkrat heard it in her voice and turned to rub his face against Roadhog's chest—advertising as loud as he could without words that he wasn't going anywhere without him.

"Go on," Roadhog told Mercy. His fingers curled around the side of Junkrat's skinny ribcage, feeling the racing rabbit-beat of his heart and the rise and fall of his breath, grounding himself in that sensation. Forcing himself to be calm. If he wasn't calm and gentle, he'd crush that tiny ribcage, and _Junkrat_ was the one and only unacceptable collateral damage in the world.

"Overall, your health is very good," Mercy said, glancing down at her tablet, and Roadhog relaxed. He had more time left than he thought. "Extraordinary, considering the life you've lived. You are doing very well. I must say I have never seen a case of gigantism present quite like yours. What treatments have you taken to manage it?"

"Hey," Junkrat interrupted before Roadhog could even get his head around the question. There was a harsh edge to Junkrat's voice, dangerous. "What are you calling Roadhog?"

Mercy leaned away, right arm tightening as she gripped the hidden weapon in her pocket, talking quickly. "Gigantism is a condition wherein the body produces excessive growth hormone, it is not a slur, it is simply the opposite of dwarfism. It typically it presents as acromegaly in adults, causing thickening of the bones and increased hand size, which it clearly has for Mako, but unusually the growth plates of his bones are still active. They should have closed decades ago." Mercy looked up from Junkrat to Roadhog while Junkrat digested this. Roadhog was struggling to keep up himself, but of course she couldn't tell that behind the mask. "I obviously couldn't scan your pituitary gland," she gestured toward the center of her face, near her nose, "to see if it has a tumor or of what sort, but perhaps you could tell me? Have you had surgery on it before? Do you have any vision problems, and when did they begin to manifest?"

Roadhog's hands tried to clench into fists, but he was holding on to Junkrat and consciously loosened them before he hurt him. If Roadhog had been the kind of person to speak incomplete thoughts before considering them, he'd have been babbling his confusion.

He breathed.

Three deep breaths, in and out, with the hoarseness of his bad lungs a familiar rough rumble.

"I'm not," Roadhog said, more firmly than he felt. He didn't really know that. He just _was_ , how he'd always been. "I was always big."

Mercy's eyes widened. "You have never been diagnosed! I am so sorry, I assumed... this was not the way to tell you! As I said, overall you are doing very well. Very healthy, especially considering you have had no treatment. You are showing none of the typical problems associated with gigantism and acromegaly so far. Your cardiovascular health is excellent, no joint problems. And if your vision is good?" Mercy paused for Roadhog to nod, "Then that means the tumor, if there is one, is not pinching your optic nerve."

"So if he's fine, why are you throwing all those words around?" Junkrat demanded. "What's the point? He's fine. He's happy. He's got big sexy hands. What's the problem?"

"I don't have gigantism," Roadhog said again, but the doubts were growing. People had gotten smaller during the apocalypse, everyone but Roadhog. He'd figured it was radiation and malnutrition, they weren't healthy enough to get big, while he'd started big and was ruthless enough to get all the resources he needed to stay that way.

"You probably did not, twenty years ago when you last had a regular doctor." Mercy tapped at her tablet, warily keeping half an eye on them over it. "I don't have your full medical records, Mako, but what I have been able to piece together, you were a hair under two meters tall as an adult before the Australian Omnium's explosion. You are now 2.2. That's twenty centimeters taller now than you were then. You and Jamison would have been nearly the same height."

"What? No!" Junkrat glanced back and forth between Mercy and Roadhog.

That couldn't possibly be right. But then, Roadhog had met a person or two who was the same height as him back then. He was always thicker, though. Stronger. But Reinhardt was even taller than Roadhog still, so he couldn't be all that outside the normal.

"Reinhardt," Roadhog said.

"Yeah, the old geezer's taller than Roadhog!" Junkat picked it up immediately. "Does he get the whole 'giantanicism' runaround too?"

"Reinhardt has been the same height for as long as I have been alive," Mercy said. "If anything, he has lost a few centimeters with age. And as for why it matters, while Roadhog may be healthy _now_ , if the condition goes untreated it will cause problems. The proportions of Roadhog's body suggest acromegaly, and the levels of growth hormone in his blood confirm it." Roadhog grunted, and Mercy looked up at him instead of talking about him to Junkrat. "I do hope you will take this seriously," she said. "If I were seeing this in a child or a teen, I would be less concerned, but a man your age..."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Junkrat threw both hands up in the air. "Hold on to your asscheeks, I've figured it out!" He bounced on Roadhog's leg, grinning hugely at him. "Mate, what if it's the hogdrogen? You were just healing. What if. Hehehe. What if that makes the blood hormones do the..." he flapped his flesh hand toward Mercy. "Do the thing."

Mercy's eyebrows climbed in disbelief as Junkrat spoke. " _Hog_ drogen?" she asked.

"Yeahyeah!" Junkrat pawed at Roadhog's bandoleer, pulling out an empty canister to toss to her. "Happy gas for healing Hoggie!"

"I had been meaning to ask what you used..." Mercy trailed off, reading the label of the canister. Her eyes widened. Her jaw dropped. She even forgot to keep half an eye on the pair of them. " _Meine Fresse_ ," she breathed in disbelief. "You take this straight? Of course you do, I just saw you do it. Well, that explains the lung damage, doesn't it? How long have you been using this? And how much do you typically use?"

Roadhog shifted Junkrat slightly to the side, pointing to the empty spaces on his bandoleer. "Four, today. Sometimes more. Started... maybe two years after we blew the Omnium."

Mercy rolled her eyes upward, as if begging a nonexistent heaven for answers. "You should be dead. Yes, this... this _might_ cause the unusual gigantism, with such large amounts over such a long time."

Junkrat hooted and elbowed Roadhog in the belly, and Roadhog laughed in relief. His body wasn't turning on him, there was no tumor trying to destroy him. It was just a side effect of the hogdrogen. He'd never really understood how it worked, just that hospitals stocked it and he healed if he breathed it. If it made him grow a centimeter a year, that wasn't so bad in exchange for surviving any violence the world could throw at him.

Junkrat preened. "Good thing you've got me around to figure stuff out!" Roadhog gave his ribcage a brief affectionate squeeze, and he squirmed happily.

"I will devise a better option," Mercy said. "Something with the same delivery method, if that is what you prefer?" she waited for Roadhog to nod. "Yes. A breathable healing nanobiotic for acute damage that will _not_ wreak havoc on your body. After some time on that, we will test your blood again for growth hormone. Yes?"

Roadhog nodded again.

Mercy turned as though to dump the empty canister in the recycling, then thought better of it and tossed it back to Junkrat. Roadhog wouldn't have minded, it _was_ empty after all, but it was good that Mercy was learning. Junkrat carefully put it back in Roadhog's bandoleer as Mercy continued.

"Well. With that taken care of, we can move on to less pressing concerns." She said, picking her tablet back up. "Your radiation levels _are_ high, but much easier treated than Jamison's. You do seem to have some lung congestion and scarring, most likely from the 'hogdrogen'. Have you noticed that? Any shortness of breath, or rattling in your chest?"

Roadhog laughed, hearing the familiar roughness of it, the popping as the liquid in his lungs bubbled. "Used to it," he said. Usually a hit of the hogdrogen kept him going if it flared up bad in the middle of a fight.

"It should not be difficult to tailor a treatment for that as well," Mercy said. "Perhaps two types of very narrowly targeted biotics? One for the radiation, and one for your lungs. Two pills a day for a few months, and your breathing should improve and your cancer risk drop significantly."

"Hey! Why does ol' Hoggie get pills, but I've got to get tanks and needles and surgery?" Junkrat demanded.

Mercy's hand went back into her pocket. Her smile was uncomfortable as she started with an 'every patient is different' type of spiel.

"You grew up in it," Roadhog said, rubbing his thumb across Junkrat's knobbly back. "You absorbed more of it."

"Oh." Junkrat laughed, grinning proudly. "Nobody survives more apocalypse than me!" That was probably true. There might be a few who'd survived as much, but they hadn't come out the other side with the kind of wild enthusiasm and big dreams Junkrat did.

"But, Mako," Mercy returned to her assessment of him. "Those really are the only problems I can see. I was most concerned for your cardiovascular health, but your heart is not showing any more strain than would be expected for a man of your age and activity level. So avoid the hogdrogen, but whatever else you're doing, with plenty of exercise and high quality foods, continue."

Roadhog snorted. There was the veiled 'concern' about the fact that he was fat. At least she wasn't recommending diets or surgeries he didn't need to 'fix' it, when it wasn't causing him any health problems. He remembered that most from doctor's visits of his youth, the doctors telling him he was perfectly healthy but should try to have a completely different body type anyways.

Mercy was lucky she'd mentioned it tactfully enough that Junkrat didn't take offense.

"I believe that concludes our meeting," Mercy said. She looked very happy about that. "I will devise minimally-invasive treatment plans for you both, and get back to you. Thank you very much for joining me, gentlemen."

"Fuckin' _finally_!" Junkrat jumped out of Roadhog's lap, grabbed his RIP-tire and frag launcher, and dove out into the hallway to escape.

Roadhog was slower. He was tired after their mission, and then the rollercoaster of their checkups. He heaved himself heavily to his feet and rolled his shoulders before turning toward Mercy. "What about his eyes?" he asked.

Mercy blinked up at him. "His... eyes?" she picked up her scanner. "My scans did not indicate vision problems, but if you have noticed any—"

"No," Roadhog interrupted. "What happens if you take the radiation out?" No one had eyes that color before the omnium blew.

"Oh!" Mercy finally figured out what he was saying, brow clearing. "Yes, they are striking, aren't they? It seems to be a random mutation. Jamison was born with those eyes, and they will stay that way." Mercy was much more relaxed now that Junkrat was out of the room. She leaned against the counter, smiling up at Roadhog. "Thank you very much for your cooperation today, Mako. I believe I will be able to help you both, and it couldn't have happened without your help to corral Jamison."

Roadhog took one step closer to loom over her. He didn't like how she kept using the names they'd been born under, like she thought knowing the bits they'd buried and left behind gave her power over them. "Mako's dead. I killed him," Roadhog growled. "Our names are _Junkrat and Roadhog_. Remember that."

He was not her friend, just because they happened to be working toward something like the same goal at the moment. When the chips were down, Roadhog was on Junkrat's and his own side, and nobody else's. Mercy would do well to remember that. She swallowed hard, looking up at his expressionless mask, her hand was shaking as it dove into her pocket for her weapon. Good.

There was a loud bang in the hallway, one of Junkrat's little poppers. "Roadhoooooog!" Junkrat called, and Roadhog left to join him.

"God, I need a drink," Mercy muttered behind him.


	4. afterparty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junkrat and Roadhog return to their room to process what they've learned.

Junkrat's whole skin was crawling by the time the wingy shiela finally set them free. Even the bits of skin that weren't there anymore. Weird. It made him want blow things up, to feel the concussive blast rattling around in his ribcage and make his whole skin tingle instead. He laughed and threw a popper, but it just wasn't the same.

Junkrat fingered the detonator that would blow the building, whole body twitching. So easy to push. So easy to take take out Mercy and her records where she'd charted him up to say that he was broken. Like that was news. And now she wanted to dig into him and change him, make him _normal_ , and Junkrat threw two more poppers—blowing them close enough to feel the sting of even such a little explosion—bits of sand and unexploded gunpowder embedding themselves in his skin.

Then Roadhog was there, a big hand landing heavily on the top of Junkrat's head. His fingers dug in a little bit, scrunching through Junkrat's hair, and his whole body went warm and squiggly instead. So much better. Roadhog was the best. Junkrat grinned up at him.

Roadhog looked tired.

Junkrat knew how to tell in the shape of his shoulders, in how he held his head and his hands. He had to be able to read his Roadhog, even without being able to see his face. Oh, that's right! They'd been going to their room to let Roadhog take a nap before they'd been ambushed.

Junkrat shouldered his frag launcher, loaded and ready. "Listen up, ya drongos!" he shouted down the hallways that he'd bet only _looked_ empty. "Roadhog and I are going to our room, and I'm blowing the face off anyone who gets in our way! Ahaha!"

He didn't hear anybody hurrying to get out of their way instead of planning on accosting them from a cross-hallway, but then again he wouldn't hear subtle sounds anyway. He wasn't deaf, but his ears weren't exactly the best. Roadhog had to hear quieter sounds for him, and Junkrat kept half an eye on him. Roadhog looked up at one point, snout of his mask turning toward a sound Junkrat couldn't hear, but nobody accosted them on the way to their room.

Maybe the creepy Athena thing had warned everyone away.

Junkrat pulled the keypad off the wall and touched two sparking wires together to open their bedroom door, and grandly gestured Roadhog to go first. Like he was a fancy butler and Roadhog was a princess. Hehehe.

Roadhog huffed, a tired laugh, and Junkrat bounced through the door after him. Making Roadhog laugh felt like electricity zipping through his whole body. Like he was battery-powered and Roadhog's attention charged him back up. Ha! Only then he'd be like an omnic and _NO_. Gross.

Junkrat dumped his RIP-tire and frag launcher by the door and stretched to crack his back. It was good to be back from their mission, to be back in their room. It was a cozy space. Junkrat had stolen some plaster and smoothed out Roadhog's punched hold through the wall a little bit. It was unevenly shaped, good to break up the weird industrial squareness of the rooms, and it didn't rain bits of debris anymore no matter how vigorously they fucked. He'd also painted it bright yellow. They had their big bed, with plenty of blankets and pillows and those cute pink pachimari dolls they'd stolen in Japan, rich as Kings. They had the big pallet of bottled water and another of dehydrated foods. There was clean water in their bathroom and lots of food in the dining hall, but they had enough to live here for a long time if they had to. It was nice. Comforting.

Sometimes when Junkrat woke up and didn't know where he was, rolling over and seeing that big stockpile was enough to calm him down and send him back into dreams. Good stockpile. Made the place homey.

Almost as good as his bombs stash, and all his traps, and knowing that he had the explosives in place and the detonators set to blow the building.

Roadhog sat on the end of the bed with a groan and started getting out of his equipment. He was splattered with dried blood a bit here and there, where he'd been hit during their mission. He also had some fresh blood on his hand, in a smeared crescent where Junkrat bit him. And some on his temple too, where Junkrat hit him with his metal elbow. Junkrat's elbow had little bit of scraped-off skin on it when he checked.

Junkrat's belly twisted up, sour. His Hoggie was tired after having protected Junkrat so well on their mission, and then Junkrat had hurt him. Junkrat lurched through into the bathroom, quickly dampened a soft washcloth, and ran back to Roadhog. He straddled Roadhog's lap—ignoring the creaking of his hips when he spread that wide, and carefully wiped at the blood first on his hand and then on his temple.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," his mouth was saying. "I hurt you. I shouldn't have hurt you. Bad Junkrat. Bad. Be good to Roadhog."

"She shouldn't have taken your stuff," Roadhog said, interrupting him with his hand stoking down Junkrat's back.

"It was _mine_ ," Junkrat agreed. It still burned that she'd stolen from him, even if she'd replaced the biotics afterward. Junkrat didn't want to think about Mercy. He moved on from Roadhog's temple, scrubbing off other blood spatters. Ones that weren't his fault, or at least not his fault as much. Roadhog had gotten them protecting Junkrat.

"He's ok. Healed up nice and safe. Nothing can hurt Roadhog."

Oh. That bit had come out aloud. Roadhog put his thumb across Junkrat's mouth, and Junkrat didn't bite it. Roadhog reached up toward his mask with the other hand, hesitated, then pulled his mask all the way off.

Breathing. What was breathing? Junkrat's lungs clearly didn't know. Hahaha. He might die.

Roadhog almost never took the mask off, even just around Junkrat. They'd both gone through the rooms and smashed up anything that could be surveillance on them, and re-swept it regularly, but they'd been gone a few hours and hadn't had a chance to make sure nobody had been in to bug the place while they were gone. But Roadhog was taking off his mask anyway.

Roadhog's face got fuzzy in Junkrat's brain sometimes. He knew he'd seen it, but he didn't always know what it looked like. When Roadhog took the mask off, Junkrat recognized him. Roadhog's face was a few shades paler than the rest of him, since it never got any sun. His heavy brow shadowed his dark brown eyes, making them mysterious. Junkrat leaned in close, so his sharper nose was touching Roadhog's broad flat nose, so his forehead was pressed against Roadhog's. Roadhog breathed in deep, and Junkrat breathed with him like his diaphragm was somehow connected to Roadhog's. Hehehe. Like conjoined twins. Ha! Like he and Roadhog could ever have been twins, even if the doctor sheila said Roadhog had used to be the same height as Junkrat. Couldn't possibly be true. Roadhog was the biggest man alive and the world just wouldn't make sense if he wasn't.

Then Roadhog gently anchored Junkrat's head in place, so tender with a hand that could tear Junkrat's head right off at a whim, and his soft lips were kissing Junkrat's and Junkrat only knew how to make hungry sounds and open up to suck on Roadhog's tongue when Roadhog pressed it into his mouth. Connecting them.

Roadhog drew back after maybe a year of kissing and took the forgotten washcloth out of Junkrat's hand. He wiped Junkrat's mouth with it, cleaning up what might have been Roadhog's blood from it, then he wiped his own face down so it didn't have as much oil on it like it got being under his mask so much. Then he tossed the washcloth over the side of the bed and lay back on the bed, pulling Junkrat with him.

"Thought you didn't want to break the bed?" Junkrat asked. He wasn't complaining, not even a little tiny bit, but Roadhog didn't often want to fuck when he was tired like this. Sometimes he wanted to fuck Junkrat's mouth when he was still coasting on the high of a good fight, but not when he'd had time to cool down afterward. Junkrat knew because he paid attention. He remembered things like this.

"I don't," Roadhog agreed. He pulled Junkrat close, tight but gentle, and lifted him up the bed to lay on the pillows and pachimari. Careful. Not at all rough and tumble like their usual. Roadhog propped himself up on one elbow, laying beside Junkrat. "I want this," Roadhog said. He ran his index finger down the center of Junkrat's body, from his chin down his throat and his belly, gutting him like a fish, except soft and slow and gentle and it didn't hurt.

It still made Junkrat feel like his insides were all slit open and exposed. His body squirmed. His hands grabbed, the pillows and the pink dolls and Roadhog as Roadhog touched him again—a fingertip tracing slowly along the edge of his jaw. Junkrats eyes rolled up, his head falling back to let Roadhog touch as much of his throat as he wanted.

Roadhog touching him was already the best thing in the whole world, and if Roadhog wanted to do that more the last thing Junkrat wanted was to stop him. "Sure thing, mate," he managed. "Hehe. It's nice, it's nice. Good."

Roadhog's finger traced down Junkrat's throat again, over his adams apple, then his hand closed all the way around Junkrat's throat. Just like the first time they met, when Roadhog was still deciding if he wanted to snap Junkrat's neck or not. Junkrat could be dead in an instant, and take Overwatch and Roadhog with him in a massive fireball. He'd rigged it all to go if he died within 500 meters of the base. Junkrat giggled, cock hardening in his shorts.

"Ridiculous," Roadhog rumbled. He was smiling, when Junkrat managed to make his eyes focus on him. Roadhog had wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, especially when he smiled. His lips just barely moved, the unscarred side turning up just a little more than the scarred side to make it crooked. That smile was a secret, only Junkrat knew it in the whole world. It made his chest all bubbly and hot, and he grabbed Roadhog by both ears to pull him down and himself up and kiss that smile.

"My smile. Mine. How'd you get so handsome anyway?"

Roadhog pushed down on Junkrat's chest, just lightly, but Junkrat let himself be made to lay down again. Roadhog pet his chest, like trying to soothe a restless animal, and Junkrat relaxed so he was only twitching a _little_ bit. Roadhog wanted to touch him, and it was nice. Very nice. Roadhog tapped at Junkrat's metal arm, questioning, and Junkrat immediately set to disconnecting it.

Roadhog would never try to take Junkrat's arm off himself. He knew better than to mess with it, even if he'd never seen someone get their eyes blown out when they triggered the traps. Haha! Best joke ever. No. Second-best, after a dead-man's switch tied to everything that could explode. Best joke that Junkrat would be alive to appreciate; when someone captured him and tried to disarm him, only to end up destroying themselves. Haha. _Dis-arm._

Junkrat had disarmed himself now, and giggled as he held his prosthetic in his left hand and used it to wave to Roadhog, then put it on the bedside table, in easy reach if he wanted it. Roadhog rolled his eyes at Junkrat, but he was still smiling. He caught Junkrat's left hand and kissed it, warm lips so soft on Junkrat's palm. Then his wrist, the inside of his elbow, his shoulder with Roadhog's big hand slipping underneath it to support it. His thick fingers pressed in around the edges of Junkrat's shoulderblade, massaging the tight knotted muscles and making them all warm and gooey. He kissed Junkrat's chest. The left side over his heart, the center of his sternum, then the right as he began to massage that shoulderblade instead. It hurt more than the left, knotted up tighter from carrying around his heavy metal arm, and Junkrat whimpered and squirmed.

It was a good hurt, a Roadhog-being-good-to-him kind of hurt. Junkrat didn't say ouch, but Roadhog's hand softened anyway, rubbing even more slow and gentle. He kissed Junkrat's right shoulder, the inside of his elbow, and his scarred up nub where the nerves were all weird and jumpy. It was bruised and achy from fighting, and Roadhog kissed it all better.

Why? Why? Junkrat was caught somewhere in the middle of an explosion, right, when the powder had just caught but the boom hadn't hit yet. But it wasn't going boom. It was staying right on the edge, and Roadhog was doing it to him. When Roadhog tugged at Junkrat's shorts he was more than eager to kick them across the room, his cock hot and hard and ready, but Roadhog didn't touch it or anything.

His eyes were all soft, looking down at Junkrat. He took off Junkrat's leg—it was too simple to bother trapping, and Roadhog knew it was safe to do that. Roadhog stroked down Junkrat's legs, squeezing the muscles to make them go soft too. Making Junkrat's whole body except his cock all soft and warm and floppy. He made the knots in Junkrats hips loosen up, dug his fingers into Junkrat's ass muscles to make them relax too. Junkrat spread his legs eagerly. He loved taking one of Roadhog's fingers, even without prepping for it. It stung a bit, even with the nice lube they could get so easily here, but mostly it felt good and he wanted it. Wanted it all the time and every day—laying on Roadhog's belly, choking on his cock until he was dizzy with oxygen deprivation and getting fucked with a finger well bigger than some cocks.

"Best place in the world. Haha. Love it, love it. Roadie please. I'll suck you off so good, so good. So good."

Roadhog didn't fuck him with a finger, though. He didn't even rub his fingers between Junkrat's asscheeks to tease him. He closed Junkrat's hopefully opened legs and started working his way up Junkrat's spine from his hips up. He shifted, making the bed creak and groan, so he was kneeling up beside Junkrat and could use both hands. They met around Junkrat's torso, closing around him. Huge strong hands that could break him down the middle. Ha! Crack his scrawny chest open like opening up those lobsters they got from that fancy French restaurant. And for all the hype lobster didn't even taste as good as a toasted scorpion. Worth it though, because Roadhog was laughing as they stole a dozen plates from the screaming rich people and made a rooftop escape, and laughing again when they were stuffed full of fancy food with their faces covered in butter and lobster.

Roadhog rubbed his thumbs across Junkrat's pecs, pushing into all the achy bits just under his collarbone and along his ribs, and leaned down to press his lips to the center of Junkrat's bony chest again.

"Heehehe! Sexy big hands. Snap me open like a lobster and slurp me up."

"Nnf." Roadhog made a soft disagreeing noise, huffed out of his nose so the breath tickled against Junkrat's sternum. "Hold you together." He squeezed his hands toward each other, very gently, like if Junkrat was broken he could put him back together. Like Junkrat was made of spun glass. So careful. So gentle all over his body.

There was some ligament in Junkrat's chest that was getting all tangled up as Roadhog untangled the rest of him. Some ragged bit of weathered rope that twisted tighter and tighter with every gentle touch and Junkrat was going to burst into a thousand pieces when it finished fraying through. Except those big hands were holding him together so he couldn't even explode right.

Roadhog's mouth was on Junkrat's neck now, but not biting down to give Junkrat that wonderful thrill of pain and pleasure and delicious danger. Kissing, soft sucking and gentle lips. "Protect you," he breathed against Junkrat's skin.

Too much. Too much. Why? Junkrat's whole body was a bomb. His skin was crackling electricity and his bones were plastic explosive and they met—all the power of that reaction—but it wasn't blowing. Something like a scream came hissing out of his throat. He tried to grab Roadhog's head with both hands, but only managed to crack him in the side of the face with his short arm because his metal hand wasn't currently attached. He tugged with the flesh fingers wrapped around Roadhog's ponytail.

"Just fuckin' kill me already or... or use me or get me off but don't. I can't—Ha! Ahaha!" Junkrat's laugh was too loud and harsh, even to his own ears, and his eyes were burning like they'd gotten smoke in them. Tears. Stupid fucking tears. He wasn't crying, he wasn't. He was just sobbing a little as Roadhog grabbed him up into a big bear hug, his whole body all soft and strong and _still fucking gentle_.

Then Roadhog hoisted Junkrat up and shifted himself down the bed, and his mouth finally closed around Junkrat's cock. He had one hand over Junkrat's heart, the other holding his hip still or else Junkrat definitely would have been thrusting into Roadhog's mouth fast and hard. It felt so good, slippery and warm, and Roadhog swirled his tongue around the head of Junkrat's cock to push the foreskin back and get at all the most sensitive nerve endings. Roadhog didn't give head often, but he was good at it. Unless Junkrat had dreamed that up, which was possible.

Ha! Junkrat was about 80% sure Roadhog had in fact sucked him off before, and it was always at least this good.

Junkrat squeezed his legs around Roadhog's head, encouraging him, but Roadhog stayed slow and gentle. He was always so much more patient than Junkrat, but he was being more soft than usual. He held Junkrat still, secure, but he wasn't squeezing near hard enough to bruise. His thumbs rubbed softly at Junkrat's skin, back and forth. Junkrat squirmed, soft pillows and blankets and mattress under him, soft Roadhog's mouth and tongue, soft Roadhog's touch, soft Roadhog's silky hair under his fingers. Soft soft soft and Junkrat was going to drown on it all. He gulped in a huge breath of air and wailed as he shot off into Roadhog's mouth.

Roadhog swallowed him down, then let him go and sat back on his haunches. He wrinkled his nose as he wiped his reddened mouth with the back of his hand. Junkrat pulled himself together from a collection of disjointed sensations and scattered limbs into an off-kilter person that could almost function, and threw himself against Roadhog's chest with all the strength he could muster. It barely made Roadhog sway, and big arms wrapped around him to hold him.

Junkrat wrapped his arm and a half around Roadhog's thick neck, like he might just try to strangle him. His breath was all broken, shaking on each inhale, and there were tears all over his face. "Why. Why would you... you do that... to me?"

Roadhog made a distressed rumble in his chest. "Thought it would be nice," he said. His head was turned in toward Junkrat's, his lips pressing against the tender exposed bits of his scalp, where the hair didn't grow back anymore. "I wanted it to be good?" He sounded worried about Junkrat, without any distortion from the mask to cover it up and make it deniable.

Junkrat's mouth was on Roadhog's neck now. It was salty from sweat, with the faint gunpowder tang from his gun and Junkrat's explosions. He nibbled a little bit, because it was delicious, but he didn't bite Roadhog. "It was fuckin' perfect," he accused, squeezing his body as close to Roadhog's as he could.

Roadhog huffed a relieved laugh, and carefully lay them over so they were cuddling on the bed again. Part of Roadhog's chest and his heavy arm and leg made it over Junkrat's body, which was good because Junkrat was shaking everywhere and his whole body wanted on Roadhog's. His whole skin was lonely, and touching Roadhog made it better. If he could crawl up under Roadhog's ribcage and hide inside him he would, all squished between his lungs and his heart. Being squished against Roadhogs tits and belly, face hidden against his neck, with Roadhog wrapped around him holding him close was almost as good.

Junkrat might also have been crying still. Just a little bit. And Roadhog was big enough to hide that fact from the whole world.

"I held you, like this, when you were dying of radiation," Roadhog murmured eventually, a quiet rumble of his wonderful deep voice against the side of Junkrat's head. He had? Roadhog's fingers were back to stroking Junkrat's skin, and Junkrat didn't bother trying to remember. Right now it felt nice. His whole body felt soft and nice and warm. "And she said you're hurting." Roadhog leaned back, just a tiny bit to see Junkrat's face. He touched Junkrat's cheek, then leaned forward to press their foreheads together again, eyes closed. He shook his head slightly, and his voice was thick when he continued. Almost like he wanted to cry too. "I don't want you to hurt. I don't want you to burn up and die. If she can help, then... please?"

Junkrat might have laughed. He was fine, fine as anyone like him could get. He had a few good years left, enough to make a little mayhem before he kicked it. He would have laughed it up, if his whole body wasn't flayed raw from Roadhog's gentleness. If Roadhog wasn't sounding so worried, or holding him so close.

"'...k," he said, and pulled Roadhog closer.


	5. Roadhog's treatment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mercy gives Roadhog his treatment plan. It goes pretty well.

Mercy took pains to avoid them both after their checkups, which suited Roadhog just fine. He didn't want to deal with her any more than necessary. He'd started giving Junkrat the new biotics every day at dinner. It didn't change anything about him that Roadhog could tell.

He got his treatment plan before Junkrat's. Probably because there was less wrong with him, and it was easier to come up with one. He was wandering back from an evening snack in the dining hall when that damn omnic-voiced computer program that ran the building told him that Dr. Ziegler wanted to see him in medical.

Both Winston and Pharah _just happened_ to be lounging around in the hallway outside the clinic. Mercy had called in backup for dealing with him. Smart of her. Wouldn't do her much good, but still good thinking.

"Roadhog, welcome!" Mercy greeted, from all the way across the room from him. She'd finally managed to learn his name, at least. "Please sit." She gestured to a chair far from her, but Roadhog wasn't exhausted from working a mission this time. He chose to remain standing. Mercy's stiff smile turned even more wooden as the awkward silence stretched on. Awkward silence made people nervous, especially when Roadhog's mask was staring them down. Roadhog could work with that. People said more than they meant to when they were nervous.

Mercy broke first, because Roadhog was certainly never going to. "Ah... I have your treatment plan, if you would like to discuss it?" She picked up a folder of papers and held them out toward him. Roadhog waited several seconds before he took a two steps forward and took them. He didn't look at the papers. Mercy's brow was a little shiny. She was starting to sweat already.

"It's nothing I didn't tell you at your checkup," she continued. "A biotic for your lungs, and another medication for the radiation. Two pills a day. Preferably with food, or you might experience some mild nausea. Um. Let me just get those for you." She backed up a step and got two pill bottles out. They were different colors than the bottles Junkrat's pills came in. She put them on the counter, pushed as close to Roadhog as she could without getting closer to him herself. Roadhog ignored them, remaining silent and absolutely still.

"If you do experience nausea, try taking one in the morning and the other at night, rather than both together?" Mercy suggested. "I do not expect you will have any problems, though. Not at all. Do you... have any questions?"

Roadhog just breathed, low and rough and steady. Mercy swallowed hard.

"And of course I do also have the new quick-acting biotic for you." She took another two steps back, and lifted a small case onto the counter. "A breathable biotic, in lightweight portable canisters. This should close wounds and speed healing just like the old stuff did, but without doing you harm. We'll see how these treatments work for you, and test you again for radiation levels and growth hormones in a few months? If, as I suspect, the gigantism was caused by your 'hogdrogen' we can have you all fixed up without you ever having to show me your face. Of course I would like to be able to scan your head. The brain is such a sensitive organ, and considering the life you have lived..."

Roadhog took a step forward, and Mercy immediately stopped rambling, eyes widening. Roadhog might have let her keep going if she'd been saying anything interesting. He picked the pill bottles up without looking at them, took another big step forward into her space and picked up the new healing canisters too. He paused for a long moment, staring her down and letting her sweat, before he turned and left without looking back.

He didn't let himself laugh about the look on her face until he was back in his and Junkrat's room with the door closed behind him.

The papers Mercy had given him were actually pretty straightforward and easy to read. She must have simplified them down into regular English. It had the specific names of the medicines he'd been given, what they did and how they worked, and how long he could expect to be using them. There were also illustrations of his lung damage and charts of his radiation levels and how they were likely to improve. Roadhog skimmed it all, putting the pages as he was done with them into the scrap paper crate. The last thing in the file was a pamphlet titled 'fostering healthy relationships' with a picture of two skinny boys with their hands in each other's pockets. Roadhog snorted and dumped it into the scrap paper along with the rest. Junkrat could use them for bomb filler, if he needed to. He took one of each of the pills, since it was after dinner and he'd just had a snack.

He kind of wished he'd asked Mercy when she was going to have Junkrat's treatment plan ready, since he was the one who actually _needed_ one. It probably wouldn't be very long, though, so not worth worrying about.

There was a muffled bang from the spare bathroom, where Junkrat liked to tinker, and he came lurching out laughing with his head on fire. Roadhog put his hand on Junkrat's head to extinguish him, and listened with half an ear as Junkrat rambled about improvements to his arm and/or maybe heading to Russia to gather scrap materials for it from the invading omnics there. When Junkrat's attention shifted to Roadhog instead the attention was welcome. Roadhog pulled him in close and Junkrat climbed onto him to start sucking and biting his nipples and rubbing his cock through his grille.

Junkrat was bursting at the seams with energy, full of praise for everything about Roadhog. It was fun to tumble someone who loved it so much, and seemed to think Roadhog was the epitome of sexiness. Roadhog lay on his back and enjoyed the softness of the blankets and dolls on the bed, hips propped up on some pillows for the best angle, slowly stroking his cock while Junkrat fucked into him fast and hard and slick with a wasteful amount of lube. Junkrat never did last long when he was allowed to set the pace, but Roadhog resisted the urge to pin him down and make him last. He knew Junkrat would very happily suck him off if he didn't finish while they were fucking. Roadhog kept his touch light and gentle on Junkrat's scrawny body, and then let him go entirely in favor of grabbing the bedding he couldn't accidentally hurt.

Junkrat's mouth on his chest alternated between hard pulling bites on his nipples, sharp sweet pain to pulse through Roadhog's body like his heartbeat, bites along the rest of his chest, and soft slurping licks to soothe and tease the tender nerve endings. Perfect counterpoint to his cock in Roadhog's ass.

"C'mon," Junkrat begged. "C'mon Roadie, make me feel it, c'mon." Roadhog didn't know he meant something beyond his regular babble during sex until he reared back from Roadhog's chest, skinny face blazing with frustration. "I said come _on_!" He grabbed both Roadhog's nipples, pinched hard, and yanked.

Roadhog roared, free hand snapping up on instinct to close around Junkrat's skinny torso and squeeze in warning.

Junkrat's eyes rolled up in delight, mouth falling open and his tongue hanging out. He moaned, cock jumping inside Roadhog. He'd got what he wanted. He liked it when Roadhog manhandled him, when sex felt dangerous, and Roadhog knew it.

It's just that Mercy's words had gotten stuck in the back of Roadhog's head. _'the amount of pain you must be in'_. He should never have let someone else's words get between him and Junkrat and what they both enjoyed. He adjusted his grip, got himself a little pressure on Junkrat's windpipe, and squeezed it as he yanked Junkrat's head back down to his chest.

The unexpected pain of Junkrat's pinches had left his nipples even more sensitive than before, and Junkrat wasn't any gentler on them than he'd been to begin with. It ached. It was so good. Roadhog squeezed and released, shoved Junkrat from side to side to switch him between nipples, and dug his fingers into Junkrat's skinny body like he might decide to rip bits of him off to encourage him when he did something particularly good. Junkrat's babbling was all happy now and not frustrated.

Junkrat had good pressure on Roadhog's prostate as he fucked, had him right on the edge. He bit down hard on Roadhog's nipple and squealed a long cackling laugh as he came. Roadhog held him in place and stroked his own cock quick and tight for a moment to follow after him.

"Thar she blows!" Junkrat cheered, having heard the saying somewhere and lately finding it the most hilarious thing to say when Roadhog came. He laughed uproariously at himself, and then immediately pulled out and began licking Roadhog's come off his belly to clean him up. It felt good, and Roadhog relaxed back in the blankets and let him. Just as long as Junkrat didn't forget what he was doing and try to suck him off when he'd only just come. Or maybe those times were less forgetfulness and more hopefulness.

Today was not one of those days. Junkrat licked Roadhog's belly and cock clean, and then his balls probably a bit more thoroughly than they needed, but when Junkrat tried to lift his leg up to clean a bit further down too Roadhog pushed him away and pulled the pillows out from under his hips to lay down more comfortably. Junkrat could only lick his own come out of Roadhog when Roadhog had cleaned himself out _very_ thoroughly first. Junkrat took his refusal in good spirits, as always, and climbed up to lay on Roadhog's belly.

"So red." He touched Roadhog's nipple, light as a breath but still enough to send a shiver through Roadhog, and then a few of his other bite marks. Roadhog had quite a crop of them this time. Maybe he ought to try out that new biotic to heal them up before he left the room—or not. Give the Overwatch bastards something interesting to look at next time they were staring at him.

"Sweet Roadie tit, had to be mean to you," Junkrat mused, talking to himself as he continued to touch Roadhog's nipples. "Had to do it, to make _him_ be mean. Needed to feel him."

Roadhog rested his hand on the top of Junkrat's head. "You don't have to _make_ me manhandle you."

"But... I did?" Junkrat looked up at Roadhog, confusion briefly making his face look as young as he was. "You wouldn't do it. The last few times you haven't been... have you?"

Junkrat didn't trust his own memory, not even when he was right. Roadhog could have told him that of course he had been, and Junkrat would believe him. Until he forgot. Roadhog could even have told him that he'd been... been what? Scared? Because when Mercy said that Junkrat was in pain Junkrat hadn't disagreed with her, and Roadhog didn't want to make it worse, and Junkrat wouldn't remember that either.

It seemed ridiculous, laying it out to look at it. Junkrat was a grown man, who knew what he liked and what he wanted, and he craved intensity. He wanted fire and danger and explosions, and he had no trouble expressing his desires. Their relationship had always been rough around the edges. Fear didn't suit Roadhog, and being treated like he might break didn't suit Junkrat, when he'd taken the worst the world could throw at him, laughed in its face, and demanded more.

Roadhog tugged Junkrat up further, nuzzling the snout of his mask against Junkrat's neck to make him laugh. "I'll do better," he promised.

"If you were any better I might die." Junkrat spread his arms wide to hug Roadhog. "Already the best in the whole world. I should tell everyone! Blow your name into the mountains with bombs! Ahaha!"

Roadhog chuckled. There was Junkrat's post-sex enthusiasm. He gave Junkrat a brief tighter squeeze, making him wheeze out all his air, then heaved them up. "Cleanup time," he decreed.

He smiled to himself behind his mask as Junkrat bounded on ahead of him to get his very brief wipedown over with.

He had nothing to worry about. Junkrat knew what he liked, and soon Mercy would have him all fixed up and out of pain.


	6. Junkrat's Treatment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junkrat gets his treatment plan from Mercy. It goes... less well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please be aware of the fic tags. quite a few have been added for this chapter.

When they'd first joined Overwatch, Roadhog and Junkrat had never let each other out of sight. They stuck close together, watching each others back in their new environment. They both relaxed, a little, when it became clear that though the members of Overwatch were more deadly than the average they were used to a softer world than Roadhog and Junkrat. They had weaknesses that could be exploited.

None of them were too much of a threat, and none of them showed any inclination to hurt either Junkrat or Roadhog. Eventually, Roadhog could relax his vigilance and trust that Junkrat couldn't get himself into more trouble than he could handle if he wandered around the base on his own.

Roadhog got comfortable with his 'boss' out of sight sometimes, so he was caught by surprise when Junkrat bolted into their rooms with his chest heaving and his eyes wild. Roadhog grabbed his gun and was halfway up from his reading chair, ready to blow apart whoever or whatever the problem was, but Junkrat waved him back to it and lurched into the spare bathroom to tinker on his explosives with nothing but a few curses about scrap heaps to explain what the problem was.

Roadhog settled back down to read, but he kept his eyes and ears open the next time he and Junkrat were out and about in the base. Junkrat seemed nervous and twitchy—more twitchy than usual—but there didn't seem to be anything out of the usual. Nothing happened, the next few days when Roadhog stuck to Junkrat like a tick. They both relaxed again, but another few days later Junkrat came tearing back into the room too quick to have actually made it to the dining hall for the snack he'd wanted. He threw three of his poppers out into the hallway from the safety of the doorway, warning shots, but there was nothing there when Roadhog pulled Junkrat behind him for safety and looked out past the muzzle of his gun.

"What is it?" Roadhog asked.

"Nothing," Junkrat snapped. He squirmed past Roadhog to glare into the empty hallway. "Nothing's wrong!" he shouted down it, then slammed the door shut.

Ok.

Junkrat stuck close to Roadhog for another day before he relaxed again, or maybe forgot what had bothered him, and wandered away in boredom from Roadhog while he was using the gym.

Junkrat's infuriated scream sent Roadhog charging out of the gym with a dumbbell in hand—prepared to brain anyone who got in his way. Luckily for Overwatch, none of them did. Junkrat was clinging to the ceiling, having stabbed his peg leg through the drywall to hold him in place on one end, his height allowing him to brace himself against the other wall with his flesh arm.

"How do you like _that_ ya useless heap of rusted scrap!" Junkrat screamed, tearing out one of the speaker/microphone combos the Athena program used, along with a handful of wiring. He shoved the mess into his mouth, ripping the speaker and microphone apart and spitting them at the floor bloody.

It seemed Athena had finally gotten too annoying for Junkrat to bear. It had only been a matter of time. Roadhog dropped the dumbbell and watched while Junkrat vented his rage. He screamed and threatened and ripped out more wiring, and finally settled down. His skinny ribcage was heaving with huge breaths and his body starting to shake from holding himself up in such an uncomfortable position for so long.

"Boss," Roadhog said, holding his arms out, and Junkrat pulled his peg leg out of the wall and happily dropped into his arms. He pressed a bloody-mouthed kiss to the snout of Roadhog's mask and then squirmed out of his hold.

"Teach that omnic-voiced monster to mess with me, huh Roadie?" Junkrat said, elbowing him and laughing. "Consider that a warning!" He shouted, loud enough to make sure it could hear him in another speaker. "Next time, I'm blowing your servers to smithereens! You'll be dead, hear me? Dead! Ahaha!"

Roadhog was honestly surprised Junkrat hadn't gone for full destruction in the first place.

Junkrat spat again, blood and little bits of broken electronics flying to hit the wall. "Let's go. You were breaking gym stuff, right? Right?"

Roadhog grunted in agreement, and followed Junkrat back to the gym to finish what he'd started, leaving sparking electrical wires hanging down in the hallway behind them. Whatever the Athena program had been trying to tell Junkrat, it didn't make a peep in Roadhog's hearing. If it was what had been bothering Junkrat over the past week, then Roadhog was tempted to start ripping its circuits out himself.

The next day he didn't leave Junkrat's side again, and nobody gave them any problems. When they were coming back from dinner, Roadhog noticed there was a green light blinking in the mail slot beside their door. That was _weird_. They never got mail.

Junkrat jumped right past it, eager to short-circuit the door lock and disappear into their room. Roadhog patiently pushed in the Overwatch number code Winston had made sure he memorized, to open the mail slot.

It blinked red. "Access Denied" Athena said smugly. "Sorry Mr. Rutledge, this is private mail for Jamison Fawkes."

Well, that was ridiculous. Roadhog knew full well Junkrat couldn't remember his code to save his life, and even if he could he wouldn't use it out of principle. Roadhog punched through the drywall, grabbed hold of the mail box, and pulled it out of the wall. The Athena program's very realistic begging him to stop was easy to ignore. Like even real people's begging had ever worked on Roadhog. The mail box was flimsy, only the front of it was reinforced. Ripping it open was the work of a moment, and Roadhog took the folder out of the broken box. Then he put the torn open mailbox back into the large hole in the wall.

The folder looked just like the one Mercy had given Roadhog, with the same Overwatch Medical logo on the front. She'd taken her damn time! He'd been about to hunt her down and demand answers. Junkrat needed real medical care so much more than Roadhog did.

"Here." Roadhog shut the door behind him and handed the folder over to Junkrat. "From Mercy."

"Great, great, great, that's great. Good." Junkrat grabbed it out of his hands and snapped his metal fingers for fire to set it alight, teeth bared in a ferocious grin.

"No!" Roadhog grabbed it back, carefully extinguishing the burnt corner.

"Yes!" Junkrat protested, trying to get it back. "She's been stalking me with that scrap-heap Athena for weeks, whenever I'm alone. I don't care what she has to say! I'm burning it, then I'm gonna put the ashes in a bomb, and the bomb in her air vent so next time she turns it on she's getting a facefull of her own medicine! Ahahaha!"

He'd forgotten.

Of _course_ Junkrat had forgotten about agreeing to let Mercy treat him. It was partially Mercy's fault Junkrat was taking it so poorly too, if she was trying to separate him out and only approaching him when he was alone. She _still_ had no idea how Junkrat worked if she thought he would see that as anything but a trap, an attack, an attempt to divide and conquer.

Roadhog held the folder out of Junkrat's reach, calming him down with a hand on his patchy head and stroking down his scrawny neck and shoulders. Junkrat predictably relaxed and pushed into Roadhog's hand, while still halfheartedly trying to take the folder from Roadhog.

"I got one too." Roadhog led Junkrat to the paper bin, pulling out his folder and a couple of the papers. Junkrat took them curiously, then began pawing through the scrap paper for the rest of it. "It's not bad," Roadhog said. "She gave me pills." He looked through his things in the bedside table, coming up with the pills. He took one of each, then handed the bottles to Junkrat. He did need to take them now, while he still had a belly full of dinner.

"When did you get these? Why didn't you tell me?" Junkrat asked, unfolding the 'fostering healthy relationships' pamphlet and snorting at it. "... _did_ you tell me?"

"Couple days before she started bothering you," Roadhog said. "Didn't seem important. Want to see what she had to say about you?"

"Yeah, all right. Sure." Junkrat dumped Roadhog's papers on the bed and sat cross-legged, organizing them around him. Roadhog sat beside him and opened the singed folder. Junkrat's folder was thicker than Roadhog's had been. The first things in it were a string of condoms and another copy of the 'fostering healthy relationships' pamphlet, as well as one labeled 'my sexual health and me' which was illustrated with a multicultural group of young people more shiny and clean than Junkrat had ever been in his entire life.

Junkrat hooted and grabbed the pamphlets. He unfolded the sexual health pamphlet, cackled, and put it and the rest of them into a stack beside him. He tore a condom open and immediately unrolled it to begin blowing it up like a balloon.

Next was a list of Mercy's office hours in the coming week, along with a note asking Junkrat to _please_ come by for one of them. Any one of them. Roadhog kept hold of that page, and went on to the real meat of the folder. There was a chart of Junkrat's radiation levels—much higher than Roadhog's.

"Hehehe, I'm all orange!" Junkrat smiled at the chart and put it with Roadhog's.

There was a simplified body model, illustrating all of the many the places Junkrat had shrapnel in him. Junkrat had blown the condom up to nearly the size of Roadhog's arm. He twisted it closed and poked at it, harder and harder, until it finally burst. He fell over himself laughing at the loud bang, then used Roadhog's arm to pull himself upright again and look at the page.

"Shrapnel," Roadhog said. There was so much of it in that scrawny little body. Junkrat being on low-grade biotics most of his life was probably the only reason they'd healed in place instead of festering and killing him.

"Wow!" Junkrat took the page, holding it up to the light. "Even my fleshy bits are all metal! Cut me up and sell me for scrap. Ha!" The next page was a diagram of Junkrat's inner ears, with damage from concussive blasts labeled. Junkrat snorted. "Anyone could tell you that. She got anything interesting to say?"

Roadhog gave up the page to Junkrat, who began to tear individual words out of it. "Just the treatment plan."

"Burn it." Junkrat jumped off the bed, and hobbled off to his tinkering room. He came back with a piece of thin cardboard and a gluestick and climbed back onto the bed to begin tearing more bits out of his carefully organized piles of papers to glue them to the cardboard.

Roadhog left him to it, reading through the treatment plan himself. It was simple and easy to read, just like his own had been. It had a diagram of a person sitting getting an IV, as though they might not know what that looked like. The contents of the IV were labeled with three different medications, whose use and dosage were carefully explained. One of them was the same as what Roadhog had pills of, to help his body eliminate the radiation, but Junkrat's was a much higher dosage when Roadhog checked it against his pill bottle. The other two were different. They were all to be mixed into a nutrient supplement to counteract any vitamin or mineral deficiencies he'd picked up as a little kid in the apocalypse and fed directly into Junkrat's veins. Once a week, for twenty to thirty minutes.

Then Junkrat wouldn't be always teetering on the edge of death by radiation poisoning.

While Roadhog read, Junkrat had torn all the papers and the pamphlets into shreds. The radiation charts had been turned into mushroom clouds, the people from the pamphlets had been rearranged into a collage of sexual acts, and all littered liberally over Junkrat's piece of cardboard along with doodles of his signature x-eye smiley face and pig masks. He'd taken out words here and there, too. 'Warning Signs' he'd gotten from one of the pamphlets, followed by 'Junkrat' from his diagnosis, and then a slew of words from all over 'danger, concussive blasts, damage, shrapnel, radiation, avoid'. As Roadhog watched, Junkrat found a second instance of 'Warning Signs" and pasted it in, followed by 'Roadhog'. This one he labeled with a cloud of 'physical violence, forceful, strong, larger, death' and two copies of 'sexy'.

It was kind of flattering.

Between the Junkrat and Roadhog clouds, there were three different instances of 'friends' from the pamphlets, as well as 'crime', 'partners', 'sexual partners', and 'boyfriend'. Cute.

Junkrat finished his piece of art off with one of his little poppers wired to a proximity sensor, put into the end of a condom, and stapled to the middle of it. He tittered to himself as he lurched off the bed and out the door to hang it up in the hallway outside their door.

That would be a fun surprise for anyone who wanted to take it down.

Junkrat bounced back in and began sweeping his leftover torn paper into the scrap paper box. "Garbage, garbage," he sang to himself as he cleaned up. He tried to take the treatment plan from Roadhog too, to toss it.

"Look," Roadhog said, pulling him close to show him the IV illustration instead. "You'll get the same thing as me, for the radiation. And one for your joints and tendons, to make you stronger."

Junkrat scoffed. "I'm already stronger than they know how to deal with!"

Roadhog nuzzled his mask against Junkrat's neck, softly. He put his arm around Junkrat, squeezing him close, and Junkrat melted against him. It was playing dirty, but if Roadhog was taking his responsibility to keep Junkrat alive seriously, then he needed to get him to actually cooperate when one of the best doctors in the world was trying to fix him up.

"Get stronger," Roadhog murmured, letting it rumble through his mask against Junkrat's skin to make him shiver. "Get the radiation out. Get all fixed up. The world won't know what hit it."

Junkrat giggled and squirmed, turning to bite Roadhog's neck. "All right, fine," he breathed. "Only for you, mate." His hands had begun petting, holding Roadhog close, and Roadhog felt the beginnings of arousal. It would be easy to let things get rougher and turn into sex, but he didn't want to have to convince Junkrat to let Mercy treat him a _third_ time. He gave Junkrat a closer squeeze and looked at Mercy's schedule.

"She's in now," Roadhog stood, picking Junkrat up with him and setting him on his feet. "Let's get it over with."

Junkrat groaned, and he complained the whole way to the Overwatch clinic, but he followed along.

 

 

"Roadie! Oh fuuuck."

Roadhog had gotten used to sleeping through Junkrat's tossing and turning and leaving to go tinker in the middle of the night (and the inevitable small explosions this caused), but the quiet thud and Junkrat's tone had him up, fully awake, and grabbing for his gun in an instant.

There were no enemies, just Junkrat fallen to the floor in a heap, shaking harder than ever. He retched, entire body curling in on itself.

Roadhog's hand briefly registered cold and wet on Junkrat's side of the bed as he vaulted over it to get to him faster. Junkrat was trying to crawl to the bathroom, but his body was giving out on him. He couldn't even do that much. He was burning up and drenched with sweat when Roadhog scooped him up and carried him to the bathroom to let him throw up.

He hit the light switch on his way, and the piercing light didn't make anything look better. Junkrat's pale and moderately-clean skin was flushed red, his shoulders littered with fine blond hairs—he was losing them again. His metal hand gripped tight on the rim of the toilet bowl, but he barely seemed in control of the rest of himself. His entire body was wracked with tremors so massive Roadhog nearly wanted to call them seizures. He knelt beside Junkrat, supporting him as much as possible.

He threw up bile. Bile and blood.

Junkrat's radiation poisoning had never relapsed this bad. Never.

It wasn't right. Roadhog had taken him to Mercy to get fixed up. She'd hooked him up to an IV and said that he might experience some mild nausea over the next day. She'd even provided Junkrat with a coloring book and crayons to entertain him while he waited with the IV, which kept him busy for the first twenty-five minutes coloring, and for the final five turning it into a torch and setting it on fire.

She'd also told Roadhog to avoid contact with Junkrat's 'bodily fluids' for the next twenty-four hours, so of course he'd immediately pushed his mask up and frenched Junkrat as messily as possible in front of her.

It had seemed fine at the time. Junkrat had felt like normal when they went to bed.

Something had gone wrong. Mercy had betrayed them, poisoned Junkrat. She'd never liked their inclusion in Overwatch.

Roadhog was going to kill her. He was going to kill her _very slowly_ , and string her corpse up as a warning, but first he was going to make her fix what she'd done to Junkrat with a gun to the back of her head like he should have from the beginning.

Junkrat's whole body spasmed again and he groaned in pain. He retched, dry heaving with nothing in his stomach to throw up, again and again. There were tears rolling down his face when it finally stopped, helpless little pained sobs pulled unwillingly from his throat.

"Get out of here," he said. "Go, I got the runs—" Junkrat tugged awkwardly at the hem of his shorts, and Roadhog quickly lifted his shaking body up to sit him on the toilet and then left as requested.

Roadhog's heart was pounding, lungs squeezing down tight like an iron band clamped around his ribs. Junkrat was dying, and it was Roadhog's fault for convincing him to go to Mercy. He might really die this time.

Roadhog wasn't letting him go without a fight, though. He put his armor on, snug around his shoulders, and grabbed his bandoleer of healing canisters, making sure it was loaded with his old hogdrogen in case the stuff Mercy had given him was poison too. He hadn't tested them to find out. He'd _trusted_.

It was an amateur mistake he should never have made. He wouldn't make it twice.

Roadhog's spiked battle boots were next, ready to kick people to death if his hook and his gun and his big hands weren't enough. He made sure his bag of ammunition scrap was full, and his gun loaded. Then he grabbed a blanket from the bed, fuzzy and pink with piggies on it, to wrap Junkrat up in.

The toilet flushed, and there was a thud and clang from the bathroom, and then Junkrat's voice, weak and wavering. "Hoggie?"

If there was any smell in the bathroom, Roadhog was glad his mask filtered it out. The only thing that mattered was Junkrat, curled up in the fetal position on the floor, retching again. Roadhog gently spread the fluffy blanket over him, and scooped him up to carry bridal-style. The blanket was soft, and Junkrat's skin usually hurt when he was relapsing.

"Kill her." Junkrat's vivid orange eyes were wild and bloodshot. There was a smear of blood under his nose, and more seeping down from his nostril to join it. He bared his teeth, fierce as ever even when he was dying. "Kill 'em all."

"Yep," Roadhog agreed, and shoved his way out the bedroom door into the dimmed hallway. "Where's Mercy?" he roared, slamming his shoulder into the wall to make sure he caught the Athena program's attention. "Athena!?" Where's Mercy?"

"Please proceed to the clinic. Mercy has been informed of your medical emergency," the Athena program answered, cool and composed as if it wasn't standing on the brink of death just as much as Junkrat was. Junkrat had made sure one of his hidden explosives was right underneath its servers.

Roadhog ran as fast as he could, with the lights brightening in front of him to lead the way to the clinic. Athena, always looking for an opportunity to show off that it was everywhere in the building. Junkrat bit out faint whimpers in his arms when he was jostled, and Roadhog tried. He _tried_ not to jostle him too much.

He beat Mercy to the clinic and placed Junkrat, so gently, on the now-slightly-scorched medical bed they'd put him in for the IV treatment that was killing him. Roadhog put his hand on Junkrat's chest, just feeling the rise and fall of his breath, the wild beating of his heart. Junkrat was still breathing. He was still shaking, everywhere, and that meant he was still alive, and that had to mean there was hope.

Mercy came in running herself, her hair in disarray and her white coat thrown over yellow pajamas. " _Mein Gott_ , Jamison!" she exclaimed, heading for him.

Roadhog pulled his gun and aimed it directly at her face—point blank range. If he pulled the trigger her head and shoulders were nothing but red mist. "Fix him!" he ordered.

Mercy did not bat an eyelid, drawing her weapon almost as fast as Roadhog had. It was a tiny pistol, laughable, but she aimed it past Roadhog's gun directly at the center of his mask. "Put the gun down!"

"You did this to him, you fix it!" Roadhog growled. "If he dies, everyone dies. I will hunt you down, one by one, and slaughter you like animals. You'll beg before I let you die." Threats he knew. Threats came naturally, even when his gut was twisted up with terror. He'd left enough mangled bodies behind in Junkertown that everyone knew not to test him.

"Put the gun _down_ ," Mercy was talking over him, eyes hard as flint. "I want to help, but I will not do so at gunpoint."

Behind Roadhog Junkrat's limbs flailed again in another spasm. He made a horrible sound, a pained moan, and then he was rolling to his side to retch over the far side of the medical bed. There was a splatter of liquid—blood or bile, Roadhog didn't dare look away from Mercy to check. He reached out with his free hand, putting it, shaking, on Junkrat's back. It was too much, too vulnerable. They'd all know how attached Roadhog was to Junkrat now. They would know that Roadhog had a weak point, but he'd thrown his lot in with Junkrat's and he could not picture a world where he was not fighting side by side with him anymore.

"Fix him," Roadhog begged. "Fix him, or die."

"Time is of the essence," Mercy's eyes flicked to the side, toward Junkrat, very briefly. "How much more of his time will you waste with this posturing? Gun down, Roadhog."

Junkrat spat the bile from his mouth, inhale coming in shaking and raw with tears. "Shoot her."

It was tempting.

"I'm his best chance to live. Put the gun down, and let me help him," Mercy ordered, hands unwavering as she aimed the pistol at him. It wouldn't be nearly enough to take Roadhog down, even if she got a shot off before he could hook her in close and get his hands around her throat. Most people were much more cooperative once they'd had the life mostly strangled out of them a couple times.

And yet...

Junkrat was crying, very very quietly, the sound barely escaping through his clenched teeth. He was drenched in sweat, shaking and twitching beneath Roadhog's hand, dying and in pain, and Mercy said she'd help him. If she was forced to by violence she might decide to kill him instead. Roadhog had shown his hand, and yet she was still pointing her gun at him—the threat, instead of at Junkrat—his weak point.

Roadhog blinked first, for the first time he could remember, lowering the muzzle of his gun to the side of Mercy. Weak. She didn't scoff or gloat, just immediately put her pistol back into her pocket and rushed past him. She put on a mask and gloves and grabbed an IV bag out of a cabinet, approaching Junkrat with it.

"No!" Roadhog and Junkrat said at the same time. Junkrat turned away from her, grabbing at Roadhog in panic.

"This is just a saline solution, for dehydration." Mercy held it up for Roadhog to read the label. "He is losing fluids. We must treat the most urgent symptoms first."

Roadhog took Junkrat's flesh hand and held it out to her. Junkrat turned his face away, but he didn't try to pull it back.

"I hate to use the same hand again so soon, but needs must," Mercy said, putting the needle into Junkrat's vein so the solution could get into him and taping it down. Roadhog kept holding Junkrat's hand, even after it was in. "Now an antispasmodic for the vomiting and tremors." Mercy injected it into the line. "And this is for clotting, that nosebleed is concerning me. And something for pain? How much pain are you in, Junkrat? On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst pain you can imagine."

"Three," Junkrat gritted out through his teeth, eyes squeezed closed tight and his face turned away from her, tears on his pale lashes.

Mercy blinked, eyebrows rising. "Well. I suppose your scale _would_ be a bit skewed from the average. Let me get something for you." She returned quickly with a third bottle and injected a small amount of its contents into the line. "There," she said warmly. "You should be feeling relief in just a few moments." She reached out to stroke a lock of Junkrat's hair out of his face. She probably intended it as a comforting gesture, but Junkrat's eyes shot open as soon as she touched him and he snapped after her hand like a rabid dingo.

Roadhog was not particularly inclined to hold Junkrat back, so it was thanks to Mercy's quick reflexes entirely that he didn't catch her hand to savage it.

"What did you do to me?" Junkrat demanded.

"You seem to have had a bad reaction to one of the medications. I have yet to determine which," Mercy defended, having backed up several steps out of range. "My scans did not show you at risk for allergic reactions." She turned away, getting her scanner out of a cabinet and bringing it over to begin scanning Junkrat. "These things happen, even with the best of medical science. It was an accident. Believe me, I am _not_ eager to earn either of your enmity."

Roadhog waited for Mercy's scan to move down from Junkrat's head, and leaned down close to him. "That's why they call it 'medical practice'," he murmured. "They're not very good at it yet."

It was a pathetic old joke, but Junkrat immediately erupted in giggles. He already wasn't shaking as bad, and very suddenly his pupils expanded and he relaxed limp on the medical bed with a silly grin on his face. "Oooh, that's the good stuff. Roadhog. Roadie, mate. Hold on to me I'll float away. Hehe!"

Junkrat was still sweating horribly, still burning up and bright red, but at least he wasn't in pain anymore. Roadhog kept his hold on Junkrat's flesh hand, and kept an eye on Mercy. What was he planning on doing? He didn't know the names of medicines, or what their dosages were. She could put poison in the IV saying it was a cure, and Roadhog would never know.

Mercy did not look pleased with her scans. She got a few paper towels and a vial, and gathered up a little of Junkrat's vomit and put it into a machine, then cleaned the floor where it had been and changed her gloves.

Her machine beeped, and Mercy read what it told her with her eyebrows climbing higher and higher. "Roadhog, Mako, for your safety I advise you to limit your physical contact with Junkrat at the moment. I'm afraid I have no gloves to offer that would fit you."

Junkrat whimpered, grabbing hold of Roadhog's hand. Roadhog snorted as he reached out with one leg to hook a chair with his shoe spike, dragging it closer. He sat down and held on to Junkrat with _both_ hands instead.

Mercy sighed, resigned, and fussed around in a drawer for the mechanism Roadhog recognized from their first checkups. The one that failed to work to take his blood.

"A quick blood sample, Junkrat, and I should have a solid diagnosis," she said.

Junkrat stuck his tongue out at her and let go of Roadhog to flip her off with his flesh hand and pull his eyelid down with the mechanical one. Mercy made no sign that she knew what the gesture meant, simply taking Junkrat's flesh hand and attaching the mechanism to his middle finger. In a moment it beeped, and she thanked him and took the blood sample away, off into the back room to ready the diagnosis.

Roadhog held on to Junkrat, breathed somehow despite the horrible iron bands closing down on his ribcage, and watched him. Junkrat giggled, enjoying the painkillers, and sweat bullets to soak the medical bed.

That wasn't normal, and there was nothing Roadhog could do to help. He was forced to trust the very person who'd done this to Junkrat.

Mercy came back, after far too long, with a stack of papers. She came to stand beside Junkrat, smiling at him because he was down for the count. It made Roadhog's hands itch for his gun and hook, but he didn't reach for them yet.

"Truly you are one in a billion, Junkrat," she said. "The medicine I gave you is the absolute gold standard for radiation exposure. Bad reactions are almost unheard of, but _you_ managed to metabolize it and activate it all almost immediately. Your body turned a moderate dose into a massive overdose. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're saying I'm too good at using the medicine so it made me sick." Junkrat dismissed it as unimportant. "You got more of the happy juice? It feels gooooood, hehe!"

"Ah... no," Mercy said, a bit stiffly. "Not yet, at any rate. So, as I was saying, what has happened is that your body is trying to eliminate more radiation much more quickly than was my intention."

"Great," Junkrat said. "Good riddance. You can make it stop?"

"Not, exactly, no," Mercy's voice was conciliatory. "I can manage the symptoms, and keep you out of danger, but your body is going to have to eliminate the radiation and the medication on its own." She looked up from Junkrat, meeting Roadhog's mask. "It's going to be a _long_ night."

"...but he'll be ok?" Roadhog asked. There was going to be a lot of bloodshed tonight otherwise.

"Yes, that I can guarantee," Mercy promised.

"If Junkrat dies, _everyone_ dies," Roadhog repeated his own promise.

Mercy merely smiled, reaching over Junkrat's bed to put a hand on Roadhog's shoulder. "He'll be fine," she said gently, and went to the intercom to ask the Athena program to order her a coffee. "Would you like any?" she asked, raising her eyebrows at Roadhog, but he shook his head.

The night was, as warned, a long one. Roadhog picked Junkrat up now and then for Mercy to lay fresh towels under him, to absorb his sweat. They sponged him down with water, to help clean the radiation sweat from him. Roadhog held him and helped him when Junkrat had to go to the bathroom to eliminate yet more of the radiation. There was no dignity for someone as sick as Junkrat, and Junkrat took it hard even though he'd never had much dignity to begin with.

Mercy kept him on a saline drip and topped up with the painkillers, and Junkrat stopped sweating and shaking and making Roadhog promise to light the entire world on fire when he died and fell into a solid sleep a little bit before dawn.

"You've been a great help," Mercy whispered, so as not to wake Junkrat. She had rings under her eyes, exhaustion even her steady supply of coffee couldn't mask. "You've done this before?"

Roadhog shrugged. "Never this bad," he murmured back.

"What did you do, without a doctor?" Mercy asked curiously.

Roadhog tapped his hogdrogen canisters with a thumb. "This stuff. Crushed his biotics to snort if he couldn't keep them down. Fed him soup." That's all he'd been able to do, that and hope.

"That's... unorthodox, but good use of very limited resources," Mercy praised.

Roadhog shrugged again and rested his forehead on the medical bed beside Junkrat, his fingers lightly touching Junkrat's skinny chest to feel its rise and fall, and let himself relax. He fell asleep himself for a little while, until Junkrat woke up and nudged him.

The sun was up, and Junkrat wasn't flushed anymore. He looked almost all the way better, if a little wan and tired. He smiled at Roadhog, and Roadhog smiled back even though Junkrat couldn't see it. Across the bed, Mercy was slumped asleep in her own chair.

"Let's blow this joint," Junkrat whispered loudly, and Mercy startled awake with a snort.

"Good morning Junkrat, feeling better?" she asked, rubbing at her eyes and yawning.

Junkrat rolled his eyes at her. "She's all aces but I've got to piss like you wouldn't believe. Get this shit out of me." He tugged at the needle still taped into his hand, and Mercy jumped up to stop him and get it removed properly. She even put a yellow bandaid over the bruised-looking entry point. Junkrat endured this with superhuman patience, then hopped off the bed to go to the bathroom. His singular leg wobbled slightly and Roadhog reached out to catch him, but Junkrat caught himself, adjusted his balance, and hopped the rest of the way to the little adjoining bathroom under his own power.

It was horrifying how much of a relief that was.

"There, all better." Mercy looked as relieved as Roadhog felt. "I recommend rest for the next few days, and whatever foods he can stomach to recover his strength. Is there anything I should tell the kitchen to make special, anything he likes?"

"Rice pudding," the words came out unbidden. Roadhog shook his head, shook off the old person who's mother had always made that when he was sick. "Toasted scorpions. Rabbit stew." That's what Junkrat liked to eat when they were still in the outback. "Bobba tea, half sweet." That he'd gotten a taste for since leaving Australia. "Veggie gyoza with black bean sauce." Another new favorite; Hong Kong had been a wild time.

"I will let them know," Mercy said, smiling at him like he was her friend.

Roadhog leaned into her personal space, staring her down. "This _never_ happens again," he said, hand on his gun to signify what exactly would happen if she messed with Junkrat again.

"Absolutely," Mercy held her hands out, disarmed but unafraid. "I will be very careful formulating his treatments, knowing his unusual metabolism."

Roadhog nodded, and Junkrat came hopping out of the bathroom looking more tired than when he'd gotten up from the bed. Roadhog immediately wrapped an arm around him, letting Junkrat trust most of his weight to Roadhog's hold.

They left together for their room, not looking back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now with art of the showdown!
> 
> http://banshees.tumblr.com/post/161491217622/from-chapter-6-of-reversible


	7. Responsible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winston has so many regrets you guys.  
> So. Many. Regrets.

Roadhog was getting bored and frustrated, Junkrat could tell. They hadn't been sent on even one mission since the wingy sheila cornered them to look at them. He was _pretty sure_ that's how long it had been. Couldn't quite be sure. Ha! What Junkrat was absolutely sure of was that Roadhog was bored. He paced through the Overwatch base like a caged beast, growling under his breath even at Junkrat sometimes.

Roadhog was far too magnificent to keep contained. He was an artist, his medium was death and destruction, and it was a crime not to let him work. Junkrat could be entertained just fine as long as there was something to take apart or an explosive to be built. Roadhog needed more room to roam, more activity to work off his energy and aggression. The Overwatch gym and training range just weren't enough. Not even sex settled Roadhog for long.

Clearly something had to be done, and since Junkrat was the boss it was his responsibility to do it. He was all better from Mercy's attempt on his life now, so there was no reason they couldn't go out and explode things again.

Junkrat was doing some 'yoga' Mercy had suggested after his latest treatment to apparently make his back and his flesh joints better? There was a big screen in the gym that could play different recordings to follow along. It was an interesting challenge at least. Junkrat was getting better at twisting in weird directions.

Roadhog had gotten bored of lifting weights and was now methodically twisting the smallest weight bar into a pretzel. His shoulders were all bunched up tight, and yeah that showed off the big sexy muscles under his soft sexy layer of fat, but it also meant he was tense and frustrated and that was bad.

Apparently satisfied with the new shape of the bar, Roadhog turned and slowly shoved it into the wall. It was reinforced here, not like in the living quarters, but Roadhog forced it through anyway with pure brute strength. His arm bulged. The wall creaked and crackled and broke to let him embed the twisted bar in it. It was the sexiest thing Junkrat had seen all day. Probably. Fuck, he wanted to be that wall. Haha, smashed rat, die crushed to death and happy. Junkrat whined through his teeth and flopped over, palming his cock through his shorts and ignoring the overly-perky yoga instructor on the screen. He was bored of yoga anyway. Who wanted to look at some skinny sheila while there was _Roadhog_?

Roadhog turned away from his handiwork, big hands clenching and releasing, looking for something else to destroy. Oh right! Junkrat needed to do something about that—something that wasn't jumping him right this instant to fuck each other senseless, no matter how much he wanted to. It wasn't what Roadhog needed. Junkrat was the boss and he had to be _responsible_ , right? Right? Right.

Junkrat sprang to his feet, bounding toward the door. "C'mon, mate!" he urged, and Roadhog stopped contemplating what to break next and followed him. "Hey!" Junkrat jumped up to punch the wall beside one of the Athena thing's bugs. "Where's the monkey chap, ya omnic-voiced creep?"

"Winston is in the dining area," Athena answered. It had finally learned not to talk at him unless he talked to it first. And it only took a little bit of destruction, and the threat of more!

"Right!" Junkrat headed directly for the dining hall before he forgot what he was doing. Couldn't forget. Too important. Had to be responsible. "Responsible. Re _spon_ sible. _Re_ sponsible."

Winston was sitting at one of the tables, eating his regular snack of bananas and peanut butter.

"Winston!" Junkrat greeted expansively, to show that he was willing to be friendly. "Ahaha! Just the man.... ape?.. critter I was looking for!" He hopped onto the table to squat in front of Winston, grinning.

Winston leaned back, adjusting his glasses nervously. "Oh, ah? Is that so?"

Junkrat grinned wider, so that all his teeth would show. "Yep. Roadhog and I were promised missions when we signed up, but you haven't been holding up your end of the bargain have you? We haven't blown anything up in ages!"

"Oh, yes, about that," Winston shifted back a bit further, shifting the fruit bowl so it was between himself and Junkrat, then jumped a bit when he realized that Roadhog had crept around behind him. Such good backup, Roadie. He was the best. "I... I'm afraid you're still benched until Dr. Ziegler clears you for duty."

Mercy again. Junkrat was just about sick of her getting in his way.

"Right, right, fair enough," Junkrat agreed, pausing just long enough for Winston to relax a bit before he continued. "Counteroffer: you send us out to destroy shit, or we destroy your base."

Roadhog chuckled, low and deadly-delicious. It sent shivers dancing all up and down Junkrat's spine. It seemed to do the same thing to Winston, but he clearly was not a connoisseur like Junkrat to enjoy it. Of course most people who got to listen to that laugh up close and personal died, ahaha, so maybe Junkrat was the odd one.

"Well, I will... I will take that into consideration and discuss with Dr. Ziegler what missions you might be able to work," Winson said, uncomfortably. "But really, you _cannot_ continue to use threats and violence to get your way like this!"

"Eeeehehehe!" Junkrat cackled, leaning forward a bit on his mismatched legs, eyes open wide and rolling just a little bit. Most people found his eyes disconcerting. "Wanna try and stop me?" He had something a wee bit stronger than a popper in his metal hand, ready to ignite. Winston's shoulders went back, his suit primed and ready to give him a power boost. Roadhog loosened his hook behind Winston, the chain rattling ominously.

"Gentlemen!" Winston chided. "I am not fighting with you. This kind of behavior is absolutely inappropriate. We are all on the same team, and you need to behave like it." He turned to throw an accusing look at Roadhog as he continued. "In _civil_ society, we do not threaten people because we did not get exactly what we wanted when we wanted it. It's abusive."

Junkrat snorted, half of a laugh. The world never gave up _anything_ he didn't have to claw away from it with his own two hands and any explosives he could scrounge up.

Winston turned back toward Junkrat. "And the way the pair of you have been treating poor Dr. Ziegler is absolutely appalling. She does not have to put up with that!"

"Listen, listen," Junkrat waved his arm, still holding the explosive. But that served just fine to emphasize his point, haha. "The wingy sheila's the one who's been hounding _us_. We never asked her to. Did we? Nah, we didn't. Ha! Like we even would. And after what she pulled, poisoning me, she's lucky we didn't string her up as a Junkertown road-sign." Junkrat held his arms out wide, hands and head hanging down limp like a dead body, he even rolled his eyes up and let his tongue flop out to complete the picture.

Winston recoiled.

"We might still." Junkrat pondered. "What do you think Roadie? Yeah? Get her off our case for good?"

Roadhog made a noncommittal noise and shrugged slightly. So no, then. Ah well.

This apparently was offensive to Winston? He opened and closed his mouth several times before he launched into one of his speeches. It was all 'personal respect' and 'overwatch is a family and we took you in' and 'civilized behavior' and 'we must not be slaves to our instincts' and so on. Bla bla bla.

Junkrat juggled the explosive in his metal hand around his fingers, testing his dexterity with the nerve interface. It was still more precise than his flesh fingers, so he put the explosive back in his pocket.

Winston was quickly seguing into 'destruction of property' and 'the discharge of explosives on the premises'. Yawn. Winston wasn't bored, though. He was waving wildly, having forgotten his banana and peanut butter snack. How insane was that? What kind of a person just _forgot_ when they were eating food? Even Junkrat didn't do that, and he forgot _everything_.

The bowl of fruit Winston had taken his snack from was huge and fancy. Bananas and apples and oranges and then a smaller bowl inside the bigger bowl that was full of dark red cherries. The kind Junkrat thought were some kind of propaganda before they got out of Australia because you couldn't even _kill_ for fruit like that in Junkertown.

The fruit was sweet as syrup, tangy and rich. They had food like this, out in the world. More cherries than Junkrat could even fit in his mouth, just sitting around in a bowl for anyone to eat.

How many cherries _could_ Junkrat fit in his mouth? Only one way to find out.

"I... I believe you can learn to..." Winston's voice, which had become background noise, faltered. Junkrat's head shot up as he successfully crammed the twentieth cherry into his mouth. Winston was staring at him with a kind of fascinated horror. "Behave... yourself..." Winston seemed to have lost his train of thought.

"I can't hear you my mouth's full!" Junkrat shouted, leaping from the table. Only his mouth _was_ very full so it came out more like 'ahhhaooowuu'. He ran for the door, bowl of cherries clutched tight to his chest and sweet cherry juice running down his chin.

Roadhog's heavy footfalls pounded along behind him as they fled for the safety of their room, his beautiful deep bass laugh ringing out. Right behind Junkrat, where he belonged.

 

Overwatch missions were fun. They gave lots of intel and shit about the targets, which was useful. They also gave lots of very explicit instructions, like Junkrat was some kind of a bot to follow orders, but he wasn't so they were easy to ignore. There was always a better way to do a job, with more bombs and more destruction, and the info about what was surrounding their target meant that Junkrat could almost always plan a quick heist to execute as part of their exit plan.

It was fun. Roadhog was never more himself than when he was charging headlong into battle, gun blazing. Junkrat was never more alive than when he was orchestrating destruction and jumping on mines to blow himself sky-high for a better angle, a hair's breadth from blowing himself to bits. They were unstoppable together.

Together they took out a small Talon surveillance outpost. A small job, but entertaining. The Athena program opened the transport's cargo bay doors before Junkrat could even short them out to open them, and Roadhog took the motorcycle roaring out well outside the Overwatch base. They'd barely been let out at all since they joined. That Junkrat knew of. He was fairly sure they were only let out for missions and kept prisoner otherwise. But he had explosives set to take the building down whenever he wanted, so not really prisoners.

Junkrat clung to Roadhog's back, since the sidecar was full of half a cheap traffic-bot Junkrat had taken a shine to on their way out. The wind whipped through his patchy hair, the world was vivid and vibrant and real and so very very green. Junkrat stood up as high as he could, holding on to Roadhog with just his knees, and threw his arms into the air to feel it as Roadhog took them roaring around the base. The wind was so fast it stole the laughter right out of his lips, the air out of his lungs.

Roadhog eventually nudged his flesh leg in warning, and Junkrat hunkered down behind him, holding tight as Roadhog took them off road and over a short cliff to the Overwatch base's lower entrance. The broken bot might have lost a few more pieces in the process, but that was fine. It was shoddy construction to begin with and Roadhog had already hooked it and dragged it behind the bike for a while, so any more damage hardly mattered. Junkrat would be disassembling it for parts anyway.

They were going fast enough they caught some air as they made it up the ramp into the courtyard, and Junkrat threw a couple celebratory poppers before they went screaming down into the garage to put the bike and sidecar away.

Roadhog was spattered with blood, mostly not his own. He picked the partial traffic-bot up like it weighed nothing and slung it over his shoulder to carry to their rooms. He _swaggered_ when he walked, and Junkrat couldn't help wolf-whistling as he followed.

Roadhog laughed, happy, and Junkrat's whole body was full of electric sparks.

There was a welcome committee waiting in the courtyard. Winston at the lead, and Mercy, and Pharah in the back as backup in case they attacked. Roadhog stopped, hand resting easily on his gun, and Junkrat grinned with is hand in his pocket, thumbing the detonator for this half of the building.

"Roadhog, Junkrat," Winston started, in his giving-a-lecture voice. "I'm sure you understand _why_ you cannot be seen outside the base? Overwatch has given you shelter, despite some very compelling arguments against it, but if you are seen here it defeats the entire purpose of laying low—and while Overwatch is still trying to reform and regain its former glory as well. This is a precarious time for us all and—"

"Mate," Junkrat broke him off. "Are we your prisoners?"

"I... what? No!" Winston protested. "You are a valuable part of the Overwatch team and—"

"Good," Junkrat interrupted him again. He led the way toward the building, with Roadhog just behind him. "'Cause if we were your prisoners, and confined to the building, we'd have to do like we did in... eeeh... Hoggie, were was it they caught us again?"

"Morocco."

"Right! Morocco!" Junkrat agreed. "You don't want the base to end up like the Moroccan prison, right?" Oh, it had been a glorious mass jailbreak. Explosions everywhere. It made Junkrat feel bouncy just remembering it. Of all the memories to hold on to, that was definitely a good one.

Winston sighed, as Junkrat led Roadhog past him. "We have discussed... is that a mangled traffic-bot!?"

"Supplies," Junkrat sang over his shoulder. "And free of charge, too!" Mercy was shaking her head at them, as they came past her too. "Got anything to add?" Junkrat demanded.

"I have nothing new to say about your 'working methods'. I merely wished to check in with Roadhog about the new breathable biotic." She looked past Junkrat to Roadhog, falling into step with him as they entered the building. "Is it working as well for you as..." She trailed off, looking more closely at Roadhog's bandoleer. "That's your old 'hogdrogen'! Why are you using that instead? You know it's doing your body damage!"

Roadhog turned his mask in the way Junkrat knew meant he was rolling his eyes. He pulled out a canister and screwed it into his mask, taking a long slow breath that was downright pornographic in its decadence. Wasteful. "Feels good," he purred on the exhale.

Hooley dooley, that was so hot Junkrat wanted to drop to his knees right there in the hallway and suck Roadie off. And that might have come out aloud because Mercy turned pink and threw him a startled look. Haha, whoops! Roadhog just laughed.

Mercy sighed a bit and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I... I suppose I could add a mild euphoric to the new healing biotic. Would you use it _then_?"

Roadhog shrugged and pushed Mercy out of the way to wrap his hand around the back of Junkrat's neck, tugging him close. "Let's go to the room for that," he suggested, low and deadly with his fingers just starting to dig into Junkrat's throat. Roadhog's hand was burning up, his body thrumming with all that hogdrogen after a short and easy mission and already healed. It was going to be so good. So good. Rough and hot and forceful and perfect.

Junkrat whimpered, nodding hard and already drooling. Roadhog chuckled and gave him a light shove to get him walking again as he let him go. "Scamper on, little rat."

If Junkrat had ever scampered more eagerly in his life, he didn't remember it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one chapter left! There will be a bit of a time skip in-universe before the next chapter.
> 
> (also, the traffic-bot is much more like the hyde global cop bots from Going Legit than it is Orisa. *cuddles the sweet bb omnic and keeps her safe from bomb-happy Australians*)


	8. Exeunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the junkers have had Enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be aware that this fic is tagged with warnings for Self Harm and Feelings of Unreality. It's also tagged with 'happy ending' though, so there's that.

Overwatch was good, for a while.

The trouble started gradually. Roadhog woke up in the night to Junkrat's quiet 'ouch' to see him sitting on the floor with fire in his metal fingertips, pressing it to the flesh parts of his body. It was such an unexpected sight, and Roadhog so sleepy, that he watched Junkrat do it twice more before he managed to say something like "what the _fuck_ ".

Junkrat jumped and squeaked, then laughed. It wasn't a good laugh, too loud and nervous. Junkrat quenched his flames and clambered back into bed with Roadhog. "Sleep," he said, patting Roadhog's mask. "Good Hoggie, sleep. Sleep."

Roadhog did sleep, with Junkrat's restless body cradled close against his, but he didn't forget like Junkrat probably hoped he would. He noticed the reddish spots where Junkrat had given himself mild burns. He noticed how, in idle moments Junkrat would rub and press and pick at them.

It was definitely worrying. As was the fact that a few weeks later he noticed that Junkrat had been out of the bed for longer than usual and found him in the bathroom poking himself with a needle. Junkrat threw the needle in the trash and rushed past Roadhog, like he thought if he got back into bed fast enough Roadhog wouldn't realize what he'd been doing.

He was pretending to be asleep by the time Roadhog turned around, complete with loud snores, even with his whole body tight and shaking. Roadhog sat on the edge of the bed and pet Junkrat's hair a little bit, just until he relaxed a bit and quit faking sleep.

"Why are you hurting yourself?" Roadhog asked.

Junkrat laughed, sharp and jittery. "Be pretty hard to actually _hurt_ me with a little needle like that. See, it barely even bleeds!" He shoved his flesh arm at Roadhog to show the very small smears of drying blood on the back of it. Puncture wounds never did bleed much, but that just meant they were more likely to get infected. Though the healing biotics Mercy had Junkrat on would probably prevent that.

Roadhog touched Junkrat's arm gently, like he could make it better. "Why?" he repeated.

Junkrat pulled his arm away and curled into a tiny ball, pouting and pulling the blankets over his head. "Don't want to talk about it."

Roadhog patted his back and climbed into his side of the bed again. Junkrat eased closer what he probably thought was gradually enough not to be noticed, until he was pressed tight to Roadhog's side. Roadhog put one hand over him to hold him close, and tried to relax back into sleep.

"Am I _real_?" Junkrat whimpered to himself as soon as the words were out, shoving his flesh hand into his mouth to bite it hard.

"Hmm?" Roadhog made a questioning sound, giving Junkrat a light squeeze, and the words all came tumbling out of Junkrat.

"What if, what if... what if I'm not? I'm not real. How do you tell if you're real and alive and not, not, not, _dead_ , or a, a, _fuckin'_ omnic or everything's a dream and you're never really, really, _real_ and... and how do you tell if you're not dead if you _can't feel it_?"

_hurting's just how you know you're still alive_

The words from their first meeting with Mercy all those months ago came ringing back into Roadhog's ears. They'd been taking their treatments, all these months, and there hadn't been any big transformation in Junkrat. Nothing very noticeable.

Roadhog hadn't noticed any change in his own physical condition either, at first. He kept taking the pills Mercy gave him, and he used the new healing biotic instead of his old hogdrogen once it felt good to, and it wasn't until several months later that he realized he hadn't coughed in days. Even running hard on a mission with Junkrat didn't make him wheeze. He could breathe deep, and his lungs didn't rattle and protest.

It made him feel younger. Stronger. _Deadlier._

Junkrat didn't have anything that dramatic. His hair grew in slightly thicker, but still patchy. His flesh hand might have started to shake a little less, but he was still a twitchy little thing with a mind like a sieve. He was still the same Junkrat. He still fidgeted most of of his energy away, but he did put on a tiny bit of bodyfat, just enough that his bones and tendons didn't look like they were trying to cut their way out of his skin. Mercy finally decided he was in good enough condition and convinced him to let her do a few small surgeries to go after bits of shrapnel, just the pieces that were threatening to do real damage. Junkrat watched in fascination while Mercy pulled bits of metal out of him with the tiniest incisions.

Junkrat got real hogdrogen mixed in with oxygen in a breathing mask, and healed right up as if he'd never been opened up to begin with. Roadhog was pretty sure he didn't remember the surgeries at all in a few days, unless he was looking right at the jar of shrapnel Mercy had given him to keep. She knew better than to take _anything_ away from Junkrat, these days.

Apparently it felt different from the inside. Junkrat must be out of pain now, with his treatment course nearly complete, and he didn't know how to handle that. Roadhog had never based any part of his identity on pain, other than the pain he could deal out. Junkrat, a child of the apocalypse, had never known a life that didn't hurt. He didn't know what to do with it.

Junkrat was hyperventilating, gnawing on his flesh hand. He'd start breaking the skin soon, and Roadhog pulled the hand from his mouth.

"You're real," Roadhog promised. "A real living junker." He took Junkrat's first two flesh fingers and carefully pressed them into the side of Junkrat's neck. "There. Your heart." He yawned, letting Junkrat's hand go.

"Oh." Junkrat kept his hand on his pulse. His breath was still shuddery, but he seemed to be calming down. "Right, right, 'cause only living things have heartbeats. Have to be alive."

"And your breath," Roadhog suggested. "Nice and deep." He demonstrated. Junkrat tried to mimic him, his breath still coming too fast and broken at first, but gradually calming and falling into cadence with Roadhog's.

Roadhog didn't know which of them fell asleep first.

It seemed to have helped, at least for a little while. He did still see Junkrat poking at the sore spots from the needle, until they healed up.

Junkrat usually seemed fine during the days. He was entertained and distracted with what he could build and destroy here in Overwatch, only at night did his brain seem to get bad. He didn't sneak off anymore to hurt himself because he was scared he was dead. At least not that Roadhog caught him at. Junkrat might not remember the exact conversation they'd had, but he seemed to know now that Roadhog could help him with this problem. He woke Roadhog sometimes, asking if he had died or terrified that he wasn't real. Most of the time Roadhog could talk him down, centering him in his heartbeat and his breath. Sometimes Roadhog was too tired and just tugged his mask up to leave a deep bite mark somewhere on Junkrat to reassure him with a bruise only the real and living could feel.

If anyone in Overwatch thought anything about the fact that Junkrat was wearing red crescent bite marks more often these days, they knew better than to say anything to Roadhog's face.

The situation wasn't ideal, but it wasn't too terrible. Roadhog trusted that Junkrat would get used to his new normal, and not be scared by it so much anymore. He would get his off-kilter equilibrium back.

The worst he had to deal with was the time Junkrat's brain went bad on him just before a mission, and it was a mess from start to finish. Junkrat was never focused at the best of times, but he couldn't even seem to pay attention to the information brief. Roadhog was used to Junkrat finding a target's weaknesses at a glance, deploying his explosives with surgical precision to get them in and out with maximum fun and destruction. Instead, he just threw them both at it like he wanted to earn his nickname as the mad bomber all over again. There was no planning, no sense, just Junkrat flinging his scrawny body and all explosives at his disposal at what was in front of him.

Roadhog and Junkrat worked well together, they had from the beginning, and they'd only gotten better with time and practice. Only now Junkrat wasn't leaving any room for Roadhog to do his work. He always liked to play with fire, but Junkrat didn't seem to mind if he got hurt this time. He screamed, a loud wordless shriek when he should have been laughing, and threw himself directly at a group of Talon goons he _should_ have sent Roadhog to deal with. He should have given support from behind the safety Roadhog could offer him.

It would have killed him. Junkrat would have fucking _died_ , going up against so many and flinging his explosives down so close to himself, if Roadhog hadn't hooked him and pulled him back to shelter him from the blast.

"Be careful!" Roadhog snarled.

"I'll be on my best behavior!" Junkrat promised, then bit him on the ear and squirmed out of his grasp to run directly toward more danger with bullet-grazes and the line of small puncture wounds on his torso from Roadhog's hook all bleeding.

They destroyed the Talon base. They blew it to bits, but it wasn't any fun. Not with Roadhog terrified every instant that Junkrat was going to succeed in killing himself. Junkrat didn't even have an exit plan, a heist on their way out. They just piled onto the bike and raced back to the Overwatch stealth transport.

"What. The. Fuck?" Roadhog demanded.

Junkrat laughed, bloody-mouthed and wild, and didn't answer. Only when they were both coming down off the adrenaline of the fight did he climb over to Roadhog and lay against him.

"It _is_ real," Junkrat said, very quietly, as he prodded at the bruised line coming in around his belly from Roadhog's hook.

Roadhog wrapped one hand around Junkrat's torso, squeezing down until Junkrat squeaked before he let up. "It's real," he agreed.

Junkrat sighed and lay his head on Roadhog's chest. "Good."

Junkrat didn't leap over to the transport controls to get the cargo bay to open when they were approaching the Overwatch base, wagging his eyebrows at Roadhog in encouragement. Roadhog didn't rev up the bike's engine to encourage him to do it either. For maybe the second time ever they let the creepy Athena program drive them all the way into the base and park the transport before they left it.

They had a short break from missions after that while Junkrat healed back up, which Roadhog appreciated. He was was happy to lay low here and rest just as long as Junkrat was still having fun, but protecting a junker who thought he was already dead was more than Roadhog had signed up for. He was honestly surprised that Junkrat had been content here for so long. There was plenty of food, and comfort, and as long as there were plenty of missions and plenty of stuff to destroy and cute things to steal, Roadhog was happy.

For a while, things were good in Overwatch. The trouble started gradually, and then all at once. Junkrat had gotten used to his weekly meetings with Mercy, so much that Roadhog didn't have to accompany him anymore. He entertained himself by breaking up scrap for easy ammo while Junkrat went to the clinic after dinner, and was surprised when Junkrat came slamming into the room after only ten minutes. His eyes were wide, the left side of his body blood-spackled, and Roadhog grabbed his gun. He was between Junkrat and the door in an instant, ready to protect him, but there was nobody out in the hallway.

"What happened?" Roadhog demanded.

Junkrat laughed, hard and sharp, and went back to sucking on the back of his hand where Mercy usually put the IV needle. His mouth was bloody, and his hand seemed to be the source when Roadhog took it to check. Mercy usually left only a tiny neat puncture wound, but it was ragged this time. Like, maybe, someone had ripped the needle out without much care.

"What did she do?" Roadhog was going to introduce her to his hook and his spiked knuckles if she'd put even the tiniest toe out of line. Junkrat just jerked his hand away and lurched away into the bathroom to clean the wound up properly. He even used an orange bandaid from the stash he'd stolen from the clinic. That was not an answer, so Roadhog marched out to confront her himself.

Mercy was still in the clinic, directing a handful of her little med bods as they cleaned a spray of blood from the floor and walls. Her white coat was dotted with it as well. "Roadhog!" she didn't look guilty when she saw him, more like relieved. "Is Junkrat all right?"

"You tell me," Roadhog suggested. "What did you do?"

"Nothing!" Mercy twisted her hands together. "I had him hooked up to the IV as usual. I had just finished my scan and was telling him the good news that his course of treatment was nearly complete when he ripped the cannula out of his hand and bolted." She gestured to the spray of blood helplessly.

"Hmm." That didn't make much sense. Junkrat should have been _happy_ that he was almost done with Mercy.

"Do you think you could get him to come back to complete the treatment, Roadhog?" Mercy asked. "Junkrat only has got a few sessions left, but I would feel much better if he did complete them."

She didn't have any answers. Roadhog turned on his heel and marched back to his and Junkrat's rooms.

Junkrat was hiding under the bed, his orange peg leg giving him away.

"Mercy wants you to go back and finish the treatment," Roadhog said.

Junkrat screamed. There was a spark of light, and a crackle of electricity. Roadhog didn't doubt he would kill them both if Roadhog grabbed his leg to pull him out from under the bed. He didn't dare sit on the bed either.

Instead Roadhog carefully lowered himself to the floor, laying down on his belly to look under the bed at Junkrat. Whatever Junkrat was doing to the box spring looked complicated, with repurposed bits of the bedside lamp and a few blast triggers. His vivid orange eyes were bright and hard.

"Stupid fucking doctors," he muttered to himself, stripping a piece of wire with his sharp rat teeth. "Stupid Overwatch. Stupid _Roadhog_." Junkrat's expression was pure venom when he glanced over at Roadhog. "You're the one who made me go to her. You can't make me any more. You can't?" His tone was shifting to petulant, a violent tremor passing through his whole body.

"All right, no more doctors," Roadhog agreed easily. Mercy had said Junkrat was pretty much better, anyway. "What did she do?"

Junkrat shook harder, breath jittery. "She said... she said _sixty years_! I was never gonna make it to thirty. I know that much. I know it. I don't remember things but _I remember that_." Junkrat's hands were flying at his wiring work. "I was supposed to have a few good years. Make some mayhem. Have some fun. Set the world on fire and blow my corpse into orbit. And then, and then, she said sixty years. What am I supposed to do with _sixty years_ , Hoggie? Do we just... do we just stay here in Overwatch? The rest of them can come and go, doing their own thing, but not us. What are we, their very own pack of starved dingoes!? Let them out when you need destruction. Just keep us trapped here in a cage for _sixty years_? I don't even feel like me anymore and I'm supposed to do this for sixty fucking years?" Junkrat grabbed his patchy hair with both hands, shrieking through his teeth as he banged his head against the floor.

Junkrat wasn't having fun anymore. Time to go.

"Let's blow this joint," Roadhog suggested, low and seductive, and Junkrat's hands loosened in his hair. Listening. "Hotwire one of those Overwatch stealth transports, rip the Athena program out of it and keep it for our very own. I know you can do it."

"...yeah?" Junkrat's mouth was starting to spread in a fierce smile. The kind of look that was supposed to be on his face, living for the pure joy of mayhem and destruction, answering to no one. They'd been chained dogs far too long here already.

"Hit Russia next, blow some Omnics into scrap. Then the Americas?" They hadn't been to the Americas yet. There were lots of things to blow up and/or steal there. "Sixty years is time to have a lot of fun, if we don't get killed first." The getting killed first part was extremely likely.

Junkrat tittered. "They give them to us a bit at a time, but they've got whole palets of my biotics and your new hogdrogen in medical storage." Junkrat's eyes darted back and forth, not seeing the wiring in front of him, his brilliant mind working half-sideways to come up with the perfect escape and heist, just like it was supposed to. "Smoke bombs," he decided. "Roadie, you're a genius! Grab your things, let's go!"

That was more like it! Junkrat squirmed his way out from under the bed, and Roadhog hauled himself back up to his feet to start grabbing his stuff. They had a lot of _things_ here, but not that much stuff they couldn't leave behind. Roadhog stuffed his pachimari collection and some cute blankets into his 'time to go' duffel bag, and was ready. He was already armed and armored, he'd never gotten out of the habit. He hadn't gotten _soft_ , here in Overwatch, and neither had Junkrat.

Junkrat's packing was more erratic. He bounced between their rooms, throwing things seemingly at random into bags. Water and food, of course, and the jar of shrapnel Mercy had pulled out of him, and plenty of explosives. He gave the supplies bag to Roadhog to carry, and took the explosives himself. Within five minutes they were ready.

Junkrat led to the door, vibrating with thrilled excitement, unable to contain his giggles. It had been far too long since he'd been _this_ happy. Roadhog had missed it. "Ready?" he asked.

Roadhog crooked a thumb toward the bed. "You gonna set it off?" he asked.

Junkrat laughed and flicked the lightswitch. The entire bed crackled, electricity and ozone, and then went up with a bang and a fireball. Junkrat howled, and Roadhog kicked the door down to get them away from the fire before it ate up all the oxygen.

Smoke hit the hallway sensors, and the fire alarm went off, cold water spraying down from the ceiling as the Athena program tried to put it out. Junkrat rolled smoke bombs both directions down the hallway, reducing visibility to near zero, and pulled a detonator from his pocket.

"Just a teeny-tiny bit of misdirection!" he said, and cheered as a small muffled boom sounded from somewhere far away. "Let's run!"

Roadhog laughed as he and Junkrat ran through the hallways, flinging smoke bombs down every hallway they passed. The base was chaotic, all the alarms blaring and Athena urging people in the exact opposite direction of where Junkrat and Roadhog were headed. Perfect cover.

They'd gotten all they wanted from Overwatch. Time to have some _fun_ again.

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone who's been following along! Your comments give me life. It might be a couple weeks before it's done, but I'm already working on my next Roadrat fic and I can't wait to give it to you.  
> In the meanwhile, you can come say 'hi' to me on Tumblr too if you'd like. I'm Thorinsmut over there too.  
> <3  
> TS


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